Fall Maiden - Brightest Light
by Mr Ilax
Summary: First Story in the Fall Maiden Arc of my From Dust AU. In the summer between their second and third year at Beacon Academy, team RWBY officially embark on a long term mission to eliminate a Grimm threat. Unofficially Ruby is on a quest to chase down a specific shadow. Their story runs alternating with the telling of events caused by Cinder's attack after the Vytal Tournament.
1. Chapter 1: The Ursa and the Daggers

**_Authors Note: This is my very first attempt at writing a fanfiction. I welcome all constructive feedback._**

 ** _The story will alternate between current events of team RWBY's mission and the past events of Cinder's attack on Beacon, I apologize if the format becomes confusing._**

 ** _The past events assume that the Vytal Festival takes place right before team RWBY's second year and starts three months after that._**

 ** _I started writing this right after Volume 3, Episode 6: Fall and that is where I separate from the official RWBY timeline. I tried to keep as much inline with new episodes as much as possible. The Penny vs Pyrrha fight never happened as Cinder enacted her plan right after Yang's match against Mercury._**

* * *

 _Present Day_

"Ruby no!" Blake's yell echoed across the battlefield.

Ruby had been leading her team along the edge of a forest for around three weeks now. Traveling over a hundred miles by foot and stopping at various villages on the way to maintain their supplies, her team was headed to a remote location near the southern coast of the continent. The farther south they got the wilder the territory and the more dangerous the Grimm became; now the little reaper stood in the midst of a horde of the agitated creatures. She extended her scythe behind her, flicking the blade out to a wider angle and focused on the beasts in front of her. The cold evening air permeated through the cloth of her combat skirt, chilling the muscles that were sore from the days of constant fighting but was refreshing to her mind that was weary from strain of the events from the last nine months; she was determined to keep fighting.

"Stop Ruby!" Blake's call came again.

Ruby purposely disregarded Blake's cry and charged forward towards the titanic armored Ursa standing in front of her, cutting down multiple Beowolves along the way. With the assistance of the force of an expended dust cartridge, she lept up and tried to slash through the Ursa's mask. To Ruby's dismay, Crescent Rose merely slipped off of the mask upon contact causing the girl to land clumsily and heavily on her legs and making her knees buckle under her. Before she could regain her balance the Ursa swiped at her, she tried to avoid the Ursa's paw but it still landed a glancing blow on her shoulder knocking Crescent Rose out of her hands. The following swipe followed almost immediately, too fast for Ruby to try to dodge it. As Ruby struggled to retain consciousness, all she could hear was the snarl of the Ursa and the booming report of Weiss' revolver; all she felt was the cold shadow of the Ursa rearing up again for yet another strike. Ruby smiled to herself.

You'll have to come for me now, she thought as she fell unconscious.

* * *

 _Six Months Ago_

"We're getting deployed again." Sighed Ruby. The young huntress-in-training was sitting on the edge of her bed reading the newest message that arrived on her scroll. "the increased Grimm attacks have shifted to a different direction on Beacon, bigger ones too."

Ruby heard the rest of her team grumble at the new information that she just provided to them. They looked and sounded as fatigued as she felt. They had been fighting off Grimm attacks for three months now, picking up the slack when professional Huntsmen and Huntresses couldn't provide the support that Beacon and Vale needed to fend off the Grimm attacks. Despite this, Ozpin had insisted that the students at Beacon still maintain their normal course load; it was a very draining cycle.

Ruby's mood flipped from disgruntled to happy as she continued to read information from her scroll.

"I have good news though." Her teammates perked up at her comment and Ruby looked at her sister."Dad."

Yang gave Ruby a quizzical look.

"He is arriving later today, he and Uncle Qrow are the Huntsmen that we are getting deployed to support." the team leader continued.

Blake and Yang, especially Yang, seemed pleased as they both stopped grumbling and proceeded to smile, Weiss, on the other hand, did not seem to be as excited. The snow-haired girl brought her finger and thumb to the bridge of her nose; sighing and slowly shaking her head.

"What's wrong Weiss?" asked Ruby with a chipper tone as she jumped off of her in a cloud of rose petals and appeared next to her teammate; lightly bumping the heiress on the shoulder, "You still mad that uncle Qrow kicked Winter's butt?"

"Hmmpphh!" Weiss' reply was as telling as could be.

With her partners indignant dismissal Ruby turned and jumped back up onto her bed and took her scythe out of its holster on her back and laid it on her lap. Turning it over the red-cloaked girl slowly extended and unfolded the moving parts of her weapon, carefully inspecting to for grime and dust and ensuring that it would work when she needed it in battle.

As Ruby and her team prepared their gear Ruby's thoughts turned to their current situation. The Vytal Festival and its tournament had been cancelled after the first one versus one match. Ever since Yang was tricked into shooting Mercury in the knee, Grimm had been attacking Beacon and the surrounding area non-stop. They did not know whether this was because continued unseen actions by the woman in red, or that the cry of negative emotion from the incident reached farther than they had thought. Judging by the size of some of the Grimm besieging them could have been traveling for months. The larger, smarter ones have been congregating away from the city, preparing to attack en masse.

Putting her scythe back in its holster, Ruby looked down at her gauntlets. She had originally tried to make punch daggers, but they proved to large and heavy that they became unwieldy. It slowed her down and disrupted her timing with her scythe. After hearing her complain one too many times, Weiss stepped in and assisted Ruby in the construction of new bracers that could generate blades made from unrefined dust. They would require a little more focus to use, but the lighter weight wouldn't impede any of her other actions. Despite the craftsmanship of her new bracers, Ruby still prefered to use Crescent Rose, even though her scythe had its weaknesses.

Shortly after the Grimm attacks on Beacon started, the White Fang had attempted to infiltrate Beacon. While they were attempting to tunnel into some of the lower levels, they had accidentally collapsed the floor in the room Ruby had been in. She fell into a maintenance corridor that was too narrow and confined for her to use her signature weapon. The White Fang soldiers had quickly subdued her and were preparing to execute her. At the last minute, when Ruby thought everything was over, Yang saved her. Seemingly appearing out of nowhere, the brawler jumped between Ruby and the blade that was meant for her neck. Ruby had never seen Yang burn so brightly before, her blonde hair was not visible under the flame the wreathed it, her crimson eyes more fitting of a monster of legend than any mortal. By the time Yang carried Ruby to safety, only two of the White Fang soldiers, out of the company of seventy five, survived to be taken prisoner. After that, Ruby and her team evaluated their gear and equipment, trying to fill in any weaknesses they had.

Ruby thought back to the fights that Yang fought for her because she was incapable, the childhood Yang gave up to help raise Ruby, the time and energy that her sister spent teaching Ruby how to use her new gauntlets. Yang was always there for her. Someday, Ruby vowed, she would find some way to pay Yang back.


	2. Chapter 2: Gift Wrapped Revolver

**_Author's Note: So I am planning on updating my story every Tuesday and Friday. I have a backlog of the story written that needs to be fleshed out and polished up._**

 ** _I would like to thank Zelindsay and XenonRaumzeit for helping me with the editing. They did alot of work cleaning up my endless grammatical and tense errors and smacking me when I tried to rush scenes._**

 ** _To my four awesome followers. You have already made this endeavor worthwhile. ChaosMarauder, big thumbs up to you! I'd give you my love but Zelindsay already took it._**

* * *

 _Present Day_

Ruby groaned as she came to and kept her eyes firmly shut. It was quiet; no Grimm snarls, no weapon impacts, no gunshots. Dread started to spread through her body as she still felt chilled, the shadow was still there. Ruby's head was still swimming, she tried to focus and remember the significance of the shadow. Focusing her mind on her body she determined that nothing was broken, but her whole body was in pain. Through her mental haze she reasoned that her prone position could not be a good thing and she couldn't feel the weight of Crescent Rose in its holster. As her head started to clear Ruby remembered that her weapon had been knocked away from her. She started gathering her strength to summon one of her glass blades when she heard a scuffing noise against the ground. As the shadow receded, Ruby realized she recognized the sound, human footsteps! Trying to stop her head from spinning, Ruby slowly fought herself to her knees, almost overcome by a wave of nausea, and opened her eyes; no one was there. All she could do was scream, the shadow was gone. Before she passed out again, she wished the shadow would come back.

* * *

 _Six Months Ago_

Weiss sat at her desk and remained quiet. After Ruby had chided her about the outcome of the duel between Qrow and Winter she did not feel like joining in with the conversations that the rest of her teammates were conducting. She turned her focus to her desktop and inspected the new revolver that was laying on top of it for damage. While she had faith in Myrtenaster, it was only because she had used it for years in battle and it had never been damaged. This gun was a handmade, one-of-a-kind piece, that only had been tested a few times in a proper combat scenario. It had performed its job wonderfully, capable of cracking through even some of the toughest Grimm armor. Since it fired off of the bottom cylinder, not only could she keep the gun steady despite the larger caliber of the weapon, but the kickback also recocked the hammer, allowing it to be fired in rapid succession. It provided the long range stopping power that she has lacked for so long.

Weiss thought back to when she first held the gun. Ruby had presented the revolver to her as a gift, supposedly a thank you for the help Weiss had provided her team leader with the construction of the new bracers. The silver-haired girl sighed. After the original inspection of the gun, she was able to determine the time and effort that went into making the piece far surpassed the amount of time the the small girl could have put into engineering it since the bracers had been crafted. Ruby had to have been working on this weapon for some time now, maybe even before their second school term had ended. She blushed slightly at the thought that her leader would spend so much time and effort for her. Weiss looked up, making sure her teammates were not watching her, trying to quickly remove the flush in her face. No one had ever put the time in for her, no one in her family, not even her sister Winter. It was easy to simply purchase something, to try to buy one's affections with gifts easily obtained by those with money.

Speaking of family, Weiss glanced at her teammates again. Both Ruby and Yang seemed to be absolutely bubbling over with happiness, something she simply could not understand. Not the happiness part, Weiss had been incomprehensibly happy when Ruby had presented the her with the revolver, embarrassingly happy, and she was never able to properly thank the brunette girl with words. She tried to use the revolver whenever Ruby was present, and she had caught the craftsman smiling a few times on the battlefield after hearing the gun go off. No, what Weiss did not understand was how excited Yang and Ruby were at the thought of meeting back up with their father. Since Weiss' last meeting with her sister, coupled with the words of encouragement Winter had left her with, her relationship with her father had become even more strained. Maybe this would be her best chance at seeing a healthy relationship between a father and his children. A knock at the door interrupted Weiss' train of thought.

Blake got up to open the door, in the hallway stood an Atlesian soldier.

"Its time." the soldier stated, "I am here to bring you to your deployment area."

Weiss and her team grabbed their gear and stepped out into the hallway to meet with the soldier. Team JNPR was already waiting for them out in the hallway. Not all of team JNPR, Pyrrha was not present, and out behind Juane stepped a small girl.

"Penny!?" She heard Ruby exclaim.

Penny eagerly stepped forward and and hugged Ruby, lifting the brunette slightly off of the ground.

"What're you doing here? Where's Pyrrha?" Ruby struggled to continue speaking through the constricting hug of the other gir.

The orange-haired girl set her friend down gently and stepped back,

"Oh…." she trailed off, "I am not sure, I was asked by General Ironwood to assist Jaune and his team"

Weiss looked to Jaune and saw Ruby doing the same thing out of the corner of her eye. Jaune gave a defeated look and a deep sigh.

"We were told that Pyrrha would be receiving training directly from Ozpin. We weren't allowed to see her or talk to her at all. A few days later, a soldier came to collect her stuff and told us that Penny would be filling in for Pyrrha for the time being." Jaune said quietly while maintaining a slightly slumped posture. "They are keeping us in the dark, I just hope Pyrrha is ok."

"Well, it's good to see you Penny." Leave it to Ruby to try to change the subject to cheer people.

"Thank you Ruby my friend!" Penny replied with her normal amount of energy.

Penny's response did not come to any surprise to Weiss at all. The awkward girl always seemed to take extra time and energy to call Ruby her friend. Penny had told them some time ago that before meeting Ruby she had no friends. In retrospect, it made Weiss feel bad about the first encounters she had with the girl, but she was slowly getting used to the perky girl's attitude; it took a lot of energy but was tolerable. Now that Weiss thought of it, Ruby seemed to be very good at collecting those without friends; Penny, Blake, Jaune, and even herself. Even though she treated Ruby in such a condescending manner when they first met, Ruby still persisted on being her friend. No matter how hard Weiss tried to push her young partner away, Ruby always came back, tried to make her feel wanted and actually feel loved by someone.

"Time to go." the soldier interrupted Weiss' internal musings.

She sighed and looked at her revolver again.

Osiria, that is what I will call it, Weiss thought, and I will make sure Ruby's friendship will not go unrepaid.

* * *

 **Another note. February 1st is around the corner. Monty Oum and RWBY inspired me to start writing. So for that day I will be releasing two additional chapters before sticking to my planned release schedule; that will be four chapters next week.**

 **The present parts are short right now, but they should be getting longer.**

 **Did everyone see Ironwood's pistol? I think Roosterteeth is stealing my ideas while I sleep.**


	3. Chapter 3: Now That is a Carrot

**Author's Note: Hope all of you had a good weekend.**

 **Ironwood's Gun-Fu? AlduGrimm? What's this button do? Order 66? And Yang didn't punch a single person?  
I can't wait until next weekend!**

 **I was told by someone that today is Monty Oum Day. So I figured I would put a chapter out early today and then another when I get home from work. I was hard at work this weekend polishing these up just for you guys. Zelindsay took time out of her busy, busy schedule to do some quick editing on my additions.**

 **As promised, the Present day will start to pick up now in length.**

* * *

 _Present Day_

Ruby gasped and shot up to a sitting position, or at least she tried to. A pair of hands quickly pushed her back into a prone position. Well, she hoped they were hands. In her groggy state they could be Grimm claws and she wouldn't know the difference. Ruby tried to clear her head. She remembered lying on the dirt and the shadow; the shadow that left her. As the girl exhaled she came to the realization, soft. What she was laying on was soft; soft and warm. She opened her eyes and took a long second breath, trying to take in the sterile white environment. She closed her eyes again.

"Ruby my friend, are you ok?" spoke a voice.

 _Great_ , Ruby thought, _now the hands had a voice. Couldn't they just be hands instead of trying to bother her by speaking?_

"Ruby?" the concerned voice came again.

Ruby took a third breath. No, talking hands would be silly. She opened her eyes again and tried to locate where the voice was coming from; she could make out a green blob with an orange top.

 _That isn't the way carrots work_ , Ruby attempted to convince herself.

Trying make sense of her surroundings, she closed her eyes; talking hands and giant backwards carrots, something was really wrong here.

"Are you ok?" The same voice still.

 _I give up_ , she thought, _if the hands want to speak with me, then I will talk to them_.

Ruby rolled onto her side and forced opened her eyes again only to find her face inches away from the face of the backwards carrot. There was something a little too mechanical about the smile the vegetable was giving her. Then it dawned on her.

"Penny." Ruby muttered weakly. The girl had accompanied Ruby's team on their latest mission, well, latest hunt would be the better word. "Where's the rest of the team?" Ruby inquired, still not able to get her voice above the level of a whisper.

"They were found near you unconscious. They have both already made a complete physical recovery and are combat ready!" Penny supplied, "We were told you could only have one visitor at a time, it is my turn to visit you." Penny smiled briefly, but the smile faded quickly. "Ruby, why…" Her voice faltered, "why are you doing this to yourself? Engaging in combat with monsters that are too powerful for you to fight? You will get yourself killed, and your team will die with you." Ruby slumped back into the bed, she didn't know if she could bring herself to say anything.

After a long while she was able to assemble her thoughts coherently and sat back up.

"Yang told me about what happened on the train; before the original attack on Vale, when we thought all our problems could be solved by stopping Roman Torchwick. We all ran ahead to stop the train, Yang stayed behind to cover our back, to fight one of Torchwick's henchmen." Ruby took a deep breath and forced herself to continue. "Yang lost that fight. She should have died that night. Before the White Fang could kill her, her mother came for her. She came out of nowhere to save her daughter." Ruby took another deep breath.

"My mother, my hero, the reason that I am huntress, is coming back for me."

* * *

 _Six Months Ago_

Wincing slightly in pain, Blake blinked rapidly. Not only was it brighter outside than it had been in the dormitory, but she was now looking at two of the most blonde people she had ever seen. On the way out of the building Yang had done nothing but talk about her father. Despite everything that Yang had told her about the 'jubilant, carefree, and accepting' nature of her father, the scowl that he had on his face could probably scare the Grimm attacks off all by itself.

"Stop scowling Dad! You're scaring people!" She heard Yang exclaim. "Anyways, Ruby made this glaive for me so I can have a little flexibility on the battlefield." Yang winked while pointing at the weapon sheathed on her back before bringing her fists together in front of her, "Punching people still is, and will always be, my favorite past time."

The grin that was suddenly broadcast upon Taiyang's face was shocking in not only the speed of which his expression went from a terrifying scowl to a smile that could light a whole village, but how identical it was to the smile his daughter perpetually wore. Blake didn't have much time to enjoy the moment as a red blur went flying past her.

"Daaaaaaaaaaad!" was the only thing Blake heard as the blur impacted and clung to Yang's shoulders. "Look what Yang is teaching me!"

The girl extended her arms over Yang's shoulders towards her father's face, keeping herself steady on her sister using just her legs that were wrapped around Yang's waist. Taiyang looked at his eldest daughter, his smile was gone, replaced with a very serious visage.

"What?" Yang said very innocently after about a minute. Yang reached over her shoulder to ruffle her younger sister's hair, "This little joke could use a punchline."

Taiyang's face shifted ever so slightly, if Blake hadn't seen Yang make that face at her a few times a week, she would have never noticed the change. It was the same look that Yang would give her when she was pretending to be serious, but would love nothing more than to flash a smile. To save face, Taiyang turned and walked away as though he had someplace important to be.

Blake, sensing one of the few opportunities of late to try to capitalize on the sudden positive atmosphere, slid up to Yang and debated her words. Feeling quick would be superior in this situation than witty, she leaned over to Yang.

"So, your dad is single right?"

"Yeah." The response from Ruby was almost instantaneous.

Yang gave Blake a deadpan look, "Gross."

Ruby's smile slowly dwindled as the realization hit, "...Ooooohhhh... ewwwwww." she added.

"Sorry," Blake quickly apologized, "I got caught up in the positive atmosphere. Joking is apparently still not my strongest talent." Blake's head dropped a little.

Yang hooked her index finger under Blake's chin and brought her head up to make eye contact.

"It's fine" Yang stated as she gave the smile that Blake had just seen on her father's face moments ago.

The faunus couldn't help but smile back.

"You just caught me off guard. It's just, well, the thought of you and, I mean…" Yang paused as they heard laughter in the background. "I think that means that Dad found uncle Qrow."

Ruby groused, "Dad is already bad enough with other people, now we have no hope of ever getting him to stop talking."

Blake looked over and saw Weiss observing the situation.

"Come on Ruby" spoke the diminutive girl, "I haven't had a chance to talk to your father yet, and you were babbling incessantly about him the whole way here."

Ruby grumbled as Weiss yanked the brunette off of Yang's back dragged her away. Blake could have sworn she heard Qrow swearing loudly about the Xiao Long family and their fascination with puns.

"So," Blake started coyly, "are you going to finish that sentence?"

Yang shrugged.

"Sure." she retorted, "I have two and half more years left with you as my partner," she gave a curious smile, "I don't need to go through the drama that comes from my partner dating my father."

"I see." Blake said solemnly.

"So," Yang snarked back, "unless you want to go fishing little cat, we should probably get to our task."

Blake and Yang followed the sound of hearty laughter mixed occasionally with squeaks of enjoyment from Ruby and various disapproving sighs from Weiss.

"Wait." Blake wasn't quite sure why she said it, this couldn't end well.

Yang stopped walking and turned to face her, "Yes?"

Blake sighed, she may as well go for broke now, all she could do was mumble "It's just, our partnership, our friendship, it isn't just going to end when we leave school, is it?"

Yang straightened up. "Careful" she warned, "Sometimes when you go fishing, you fall in."

"But you'll pull me out again," Blake was still speaking softly, in a manner that sounded almost like a plea. "you always do. Please tell me."

"I intend…" Yang paused, dropping her voice down to near the level of Blake's, yet it still maintained it strength. "I intend to keep you with me for as long as I can." Yang, somehow standing up even taller gestured with her hand and smiled, "We need to go meet with the rest of the Huntsmen and Huntresses, it sounds like it's time for the final showdown."

Blake trailed behind Yang, lost in her thoughts. Mankind, Faunus terrorist, they raised me in the dark, they broke my wings, stole them; and you Yang, you gave me yours without a second thought just to see me fly. I will do whatever I can to repay you for this kindness.

* * *

 **In case people are wondering, yes all of the girls of RWBY have an secondary weapon. XenonRaumzeit and I had a big debate about it one snowy day when we were out and about. Yes, to apparently people are willing to give the stink eye to those willing to talk (argue exuberantly) about fictional weapons in public. I think one parent even pulled their kid to the other side of the road.**

 **I will see you all this evening for Chapter 4: Is that so, Pyrrha?**


	4. Chapter 4: Is that so, Pyrrha?

**Author's Note: Here is the second Monty Oum Day chapter!**

 **If anyone wants to send me money to buy Zelindsay a drink, or just mail her a beer, that'd be super awesome of you. She finished up her school work and gave up valuable Fallout: 4 time to make sure I could get this out to you.**

* * *

 _Present Day_

"Let's go!" Ruby exclaimed to her team as she walked into the lobby of the hospital with Penny trailing behind her. "We have a mission to complete."

Blake and Weiss both turned to see the bubbly brunette walking towards them, apparently healed of the wounds that were inflicted upon here in the last fight.

"Hold on." Countered Weiss in a very surprised tone. "You just got out of the hospital, you dunce, you can not j…"

Ruby cut her partner off, "This needs to be done. Ozpin entrusted me with this task. It was given directly to me and kept off the bounty boards"

"You were almost dead when we brought you in here two days ago." Blake started to admonish her. "You can't..."

"This needs to be done" Ruby interrupted, bouncing happily on her toes trying to smooth over the rudeness of her words.

Looking dejected Weiss protested, "Fine, but you still need to take care of yourself."

The four girls gathered their gear and headed out of town. They were already far away from the Kingdoms and only getting farther. The hospital that they had been taken to, like the town it was in, could hardly be called modern by any form of measurement. They hadn't had communication reception on their scrolls for weeks. Ruby had no complaints though, at least none that she would voice out loud. Once out of the village, Ruby made a beeline for the nearby forest, her team trudging after her.

When they had left Beacon for this mission, at the start of their break after their second year, Ren and Pyrrha, when she had come out of her coma, tried to talk them out of going. Jaune and Nora had offered to join. None of them could convince Ruby to abandon her course, and she already felt bad enough for the danger she was going to be putting her team in, she couldn't risk anyone else coming with them.

"Ruby, I do not want to intrude, but what are we looking for anyways?" Penny inquired.

Ruby hesitated.

"You never did disclose the mission details to us." added Blake.

"Well." Ruby thought about her words.

Since the basis for her mission was so unusual, Ruby didn't have any sort of instructions or dossier she could just hand over to her teammates. Even if she did, it wouldn't make any sense to them; the mission wasn't even Ozpin's idea to begin with. Ruby had approached Ozpin and he was originally not willing to authorize it. Only when she stretched the truth and misled Ozpin for the reason she needed to travel to this area of Remnant did he finally agree to it; Glynda still objected anyways. It was a good thing that her uncle Qrow wasn't there to stop her either, that would probably have caused Ruby to lose all resolve for her hunt before she even started.

Ruby decided to pick the words that sounded best in her head."We are looking for a more powerful Grimm."

"What?" exclaimed Weiss.

Yup, definitely sounded better in her head.

Blake followed up,"This is insane."

Ruby looked to Penny.

"Ruby my friend, we have barely survived the last few encounters." Penny added hesitantly.

"No." Interjected Weiss. "I don't even know how we survived the last few encounters! By all rights we should be dead right now. Those Grimm defeated us so why did they not finish us off?"

Ruby couldn't take it anymore, her emotions were welling up inside of her. "I know!" she cried out, " I can't explain it to you. The reason that we've survived is the reason we're out here." Choking back sobs Ruby continued to cry out. "We have to find her, she's a maiden, she didn't die, she left! I have to find her!" Ruby collapsed onto her hands and knees in hysterics.

Her teammates glanced at each other surprised by the emotional outburst and hesitated in their response.

"Ruby, when did you start wearing a necklace?" Weiss asked as she knelt down next to Ruby; trying to change the subject and pointing to the chain that that had partially slid out from the cape that the teenager insisted on wearing every moment of the day, and sometimes to bed.

"I've never seen you wear it before, did Ozpin give it to you for this mission?"

Ruby's hand shot up to her neckline. "No," she said simply, attempting to push the chain back under the cloak. "I've had this necklace since I was a toddler. It belongs to her, she never knew I had it. It has always kept me comforted when I've felt alone."

"May I see it?" Weiss continued.

Ruby finished pushing the chain back under her cloak and stood up. "No, I don't want anyone to see, I keep it hidden for a reason."

 _Six Months Ago_

Yang surveyed the scene. They were standing outside the walls of Beacon Academy facing across the a large field at the tree line of the Emerald Forest. Everyone was here, all the Huntsmen and Huntresses that she had seen flitting in and out of Beacon and Vale for the past few months. Every student she had ever passed in the hall, every teacher that she received instruction from. The whole thing seemed surreal. It seemed like every point in her life was joining at this conflux. The fact that her father and uncle were also present was just icing on the cake. There were only two people that mattered that were missing, one was dead and the other had left before Yang even knew her. No, Yang realized, not every combatant was here. A lot of soldiers and the combat androids were also missing. Were they deployed to protect the towns and villages? The absence of the Huntsman and Huntresses that gave up their duties to defend Beacon and Vale from the nonstop Grimm attacks would have left those smaller residential areas vulnerable.

Yang couldn't help but feel guilty about the attacks. It was her actions that lead the kingdom to this point. Even though she had been tricked by Emerald into shooting the unprotected Mercury through the knee after he had lost the match, it was still what caused the Grimm attacks. Yang tried to avoid reflecting too much on the incident, but it kept clawing its way back into her conscious thoughts; she kept telling herself that she would have time to contemplate her actions after the attacks stopped, but it still gnawed away at her.

She had won that match. When she thought Mercury had tried to take a cheap shot at her, she could have done almost anything. She could have blocked the blow, tried to dodge it, or even just take the hit. No, she had to take her normal route of meeting force with force; to bring justice on those who would try to take what didn't belong to them. Caught up in her self pity, it took Yang a moment to perceive the movement she caught from the corner of her eye.

A small group walked down the field in front of the gathering of warriors. Yang looked closer, Ozpin lead the group followed by the ever present Glynda, uncle Qrow, General Ironwood, and Pyrrha.

"Pyrrha!" Yang heard Jaune shout from the crowd desperately.

Yang looked at her teammates beside her, they all seemed as surprised as she was at the sudden reappearance of the gladiator.

Pyrrha hesitated, her head twitched in the direction of her former team leader. The hesitation didn't last long as Pyrrha gathered herself and continued forward. The group reached the head of the of the congregation and stood in formation. After a few moments Ozpin began to speak. As always, the headmaster's speech was short, factual, and somewhat bleak; he also, befitting his normal habits, ended his speech with a few words of genuine encouragement.

After a short period of murmuring from the crowd, Ironwood stepped forward. His speech was also in form with his nature of the previous speeches that Yang had heard the General give; long-winded and about bravado and courage. Neither of the speeches were unique. Every engagement and combat mission that Yang had participated in in the last few months since the Grimm attacks started had always had some commander giving a speech before they started. Now, she couldn't help but start to feel a little bored.

Yang glanced down down the line at her sister. Ruby appeared to be just as, or even more bored than Yang was, constantly fidgeting with the clasps that secured her red cloak to the rest of her outfit. Yang, trying to keep herself entertained, started thinking of a joke to tell the black-haired faunus next to her. Despite their brief, yet serious, conversation they had earlier, her partner seemed to be in a good humor. The girl's mood, despite the impending battle slightly confused her. Smirking to herself, if she could elicit a laugh from the normally unflappable girl, it would make her day. As she leaned over to whisper into Blake's ear, the crowd broke into applause. Disappointed, Yang looked back to the front, Ironwood had concluded his speech. Judging by the crowd's continued applause and cheers, it seemed that Ironwood concluded his speech with more flair than the norm. After the applause finally died down Pyrrha stepped forward.

"Pyrrha! Pyrrha! Pyrrha!" The crowd started to chant.

Shocked by the crowd's reaction Yang's gaze snapped over to where her team and JNPR were standing and confirmed that she was not the only one confused. Pyrrha waited patiently for the cheering to die down, she kept her chin tilted slightly upward giving the appearance that she was observing everyone in the crowd at one time. The field fell silent as the feeling of anticipation began to build within those gathered, and Pyrrha started to speak.

"My Friends! We thank you for your sacrifices. Everything that you have done for the people of Vale, everything you have done to ensure the future of Beacon. We stand on the pinnacle of victory. What we do today will be momentous and will be retold in stories and legends for centuries to come. What we face today is the largest but last Grimm threat that we will face during this campaign. Tonight we get to return to our families with our heads held high! Our husbands, our wives, our mothers and fathers, our children and siblings; you will have ensured their safety! The terrorists who have put these actions into motion have sought to drive a rift between our kingdoms, but what do we see today? Look around you! You stand side by side with your with your comrades from Vale, Atlas, Mistral and Vacuo. Let this unity be our driving force against these monstrosities, for they are the darkness and we are the light! We are the paragons of virtue and glory, and we will rise above! Upon this day we are immortal, we are victorious!"

Pyrrha's speech was followed immediately by thunderous applause. Pyrrha took a step back with a satisfied look on her face. It was a great speech, but even though Yang hadn't spent much time with champion, she knew that that something was wrong with the girl. A few people away from her, she heard Jaune gasp. Yang looked over at the boy and saw him touch his left shoulder before dropping his head and shaking it slowly. After the applause started to die down Ozpin, and his entourage, turned to start walking a path that would take them to the other side of the congregation then they had entered from. Before he had completely turned, Yang saw Ozpin nod to Pyrrha. While the adults moved away from Yang, Pyrrha headed right for her former team.

"Jaune, please collect your team and follow me." Pyrrha looked over at Ruby, "Ruby, bring your team as well."

Yang looked back over at the blonde swordsman, while he moved to comply, he did so hesitantly. His visage matched his actions, betraying the conflicted emotions he was feeling. Ruby, too. Yang confirmed by looking at her sister. The perky girl gathered the rest of their teammates in a cheerless manner; her perception of the situation was greater than most girls her age would possess. The eight of them followed Pyrrha to a nearby command tent that had been recently, and by the looks of it, hastily constructed. Pyrrha entered first and moved to the back of the tent, turning around so she faced the entrance as the rest of them filed in. Yang noticed Pyrrha's eyes narrowed slightly as Penny walked in.

"Penny, I'm sorry, but could you plea.."

"No," Jaune interrupted sharply. "she is part of my team now. If you want me here, she stays too."

Yang was taken aback by the anger and pain that she heard from Jaune's voice. It was apparent that Pyrrha's unexplained absence and attitude had affected the normally optimistic boy very deeply. She thought about how that feeling of abandonment would affect her. Yang had felt something similar the night that Blake had run off after revealing she was a faunus and a former member of the White Fang. The time they waited for her to come back, the long hours they spent searching, without hope, for their stray teammate. No, Yang stopped herself, this is different. At that time Blake had been the injured party, she was the one who had been hurt and confused, the one who felt unwanted. Yang still knew who Blake was, she just didn't know if she would find her. Pyrrha is standing right in front of Jaune, at least physically; mentally and emotionally, the armored girl may as well have been a complete stranger, one who didn't care for Jaune anymore. Pyrrha had changed.

Weiss was the first to break the silence. "Pyrrha, those soldiers, those Huntsmen and Huntresses, they all cheered for you."

Pyrrha looked down quickly, finally resembling the girl they used to know.

"It seems I have come into fame once again." She looked up, with eyes softer than before. "I have been on the front lines since the beginning of the attacks. Ozpin and Ironwood have always made sure that I was not stationed near any of you; the risk of me failing to do my job, the casualties that would come because of it, was too high."

Pyrrha's voice started to show strain. "I have been a part of all the most dangerous missions, and the deadliest battles." Her gaze shifted to Jaune. "This is what a war hero is Jaune. It isn't glamorous, it isn't praise, it is spending so much time on the battlefield that the only skill you have left is killing, so maybe, just maybe, someone else can live. Taking a hit so the person beside you doesn't have to, only for the strike after that to land on them anyways. The scars of failing to save the person next to you don't always just show on your body, they start to mar your soul as well.

"I have led charges of hundreds of soldiers against many times more Grimm. I have seen the fear, the cowardice, in the eyes of Huntsmen and Huntresses twice my age while they fled as I stood my ground to cover their retreat. I have tried to save them all, but I have lost so many. It weighs down on your soul; it has to. Someone who could go through all that and walk out unscathed is more of a monster than the Grimm are. However, the most important thing I learned though, is that a hero can't do this alone." Pyrrha took a deep shaky breath, maintaining her eye contact with Jaune. Yang saw the anger drain from Jaune's face, only to be replaced by a look of defeat.

"I'm sorry Jaune. I'm sorry for walking away from you. This isn't how it was supposed to be; this isn't how I wanted it to be. I just wanted to be the girl longing after a boy who saw her for who she was, who didn't care about the fame or money that she came with. I didn't want to be the hero, I didn't want the world looking at me, waiting for me to save them. I'm so sorry."

Pyrrha, tearing her eyes away from Jaune, took a moment to wipe them before setting her gaze to the general direction of everyone gathered. She only could maintain her gaze for a short period before casting it downwards, unable to bear the looks hurt and sadness that now had overtaken the faces of her former friends.

"I have something to tell you all, maybe then you will understand. I have to tell you about the maidens."

* * *

 **Did Pyrrha seem like a bit of a jerk there? I always imagined that her childhood was a lot like Weiss' childhood. Lonely and segregated from her peers. But Weiss was brought up to think she is superior to others, Pyrrha seems like she was brought up to always be prim and proper. Some of the looks that she gives makes me think that she is sometimes is on the edge of snapping at someone. Plus who knows how 3 months of nonstop fighting against Grimm and the White Fang would affect her?**

 **Two stories I read that were good additions for today. Once, A Long Time Ago by XenonRaumzeit and Guys. What Was He Like?** **by Trigunner.  
** **Both are short quick reads.**

 **Anyway, tomorrow is another chapter released on the proper day. Chapter 5: The Calm Before the Dragon.**


	5. Chapter 5: The Calm Before the Dragon

**Author's Note: With Zelindsay busy, XenonRaumzeit stepped up and edited this for me at the last minute.  
Apparently not as last minute as I thought because he had plenty of time to tease me about mixing up _ravage_ and _ravish_ when talking about what Grimm do to people.  
**

* * *

 _Present Day_

Ruby trudged off in a fit of emotion, leaving the girls shocked.

"I wish Yang was here." Muttered Weiss.

"Don't we all?" Replied Blake. "She could always make everything right. It didn't matter what the problem was, or who started it, she would always end it. She would always make sure that you were ok and felt loved."

Blake reached up to wipe the tear from her face as Weiss turned to try to hide the fact she was doing the same. Yang's death almost half a year ago, her sacrifice during the last battle at Beacon, had affected them all. The blonde had alway been a guiding light to all of them. Grief, loneliness, hatred. They all had their ailments cured by Yang; now their lives were all the poorer at her passing.

"Wait, Ruby! You should not go off on your own." Weiss yelled as she took off after her partner.

Blake paused and motioned to Penny to hold for a moment.

"Who is the 'she' that Ruby is referring to? Do you know anything?" Blake asked.

"In the hospital Ruby spoke of her mother. I do not know anything more than that" Confessed Penny.

"I see" Blake said evenly. "Back when we were still hunting Torchwick and trying to figure out what the White Fang was planning, Yang had told me a story about her and Ruby's childhood; about her and Ruby's mom. She was a Huntress, one of the best, or so I have heard. Her name was Summer Rose. One day, Summer left for a mission and never came back; everyone says she's dead. There is a grave site on the cliffs of Patch near Ruby's family's home. As you can see, while Yang took her dad's name, the death of Summer affected Ruby so much, she took Summer's last name instead."

"But this means that she is not dead then, right?" Inquired Penny. "Ruby said her mother is a maiden now."

"I don't know what this means, Penny, but I do know what this means for me. I will never stop protecting Ruby. I was never able to repay Yang for everything that she did for me, the least I can do is take care of her sister. Ruby meant more to Yang than anyone else in her life. Ruby has lost her wings, the least I can do is give her mine. She deserves to fly, to have a life again."

* * *

 _Six Months Ago_

The battle was preceded by a terrible howl. It wasn't the strained roars of feral Grimm looking to ravage the nearest human or faunus.

 _No_ , Blake thought, _this sound is fuller and ancient_.

The elder Grimm massed beyond the treeline were howling in sync, driving waking nightmares into the minds of the warriors poised to fight them. This was a sound that Blake had never heard before, and it was terrifying. The sound of just one elder Grimm was often enough to frighten even the most hardened Huntsman or Huntress, and the amount they were about to face was far beyond count.

As suddenly as the howl had started, it stopped. Before the echo had even cleared the ears of the defenders, hundreds, possibly even thousands, of Grimm poured out of the forest, churning the dirt beneath their claws as they rampaged at full speed towards the academy. The relative silence would not last, as the first Grimm became visible, the air filled with the cracks of gunfire and flashes of dust projectiles. Blake began to choose her targets as they got closer, her twin handguns, Gambol and Caper, did not have the same range as some of the weapons the other warriors wielded.

Caper, Yang insisted on naming it for her. The faunus girl had given up the cleaver-like sheathe of her weapon. It had seen the blood of too many people from her days in the White Fang; she didn't want to keep herself shrouded in darkness anymore. Instead she built a matching copy of the other half of her original weapon, keeping the cheerier part of the weapon's name.

Blake shook her head to clear it and went back to her task of eliminating as many of the Grimm as she could. As the Grimm got closer to the defenders, the weaker and younger Grimm began to falter and fall, but not the larger beasts. They had lived for too long, their armor had grown too thick. It would take a lucky shot to slip through the cracks in their armor to even hurt them. These Grimm would most likely have to be engaged at a closer, riskier distance. As Blake paused to reload her weapons she glanced over at Yang and Ruby's uncle and father. Qrow was taking the typical actions that a Huntsman would do in a situation like this, which was shooting as many of the Grimm as he could. Taiyang on the other hand, was standing completely still next to Qrow.

 _I wonder if he is smiling right now_ , thought Blake, as she looked to Yang. _His daughter certainly is._

As larger Grimm started to get closer to where Blake and her companions were stationed, Blake lept forward to cover the motionless man's flank. Unfolding the blades on her weapons as she prepared to counterattack, she heard the chime of a glyph being cast. The ground below her glowed yellow and Blake felt the energy of the haste glyph being infused into her body. The faunus made dozens of cuts through the air, faster than the eye could follow, unleashing waves of purple energy that cut down the encroaching Grimm. Done with her task Blake lept back to her teammates, looking over at the snow-haired caster she mouthed the words 'Thank you'.

The heiress had come a long from when they had first met, when Ruby had blown up the courtyard at Beacon by accident. Despite their spats, Weiss had grown out of the intolerance she had been raised with to become Blake's best friend. This position was cemented after Weiss had shown the heart to adamantly believe Yang after her match with Mercury, even though she had no tangible proof that Yang was innocent. Blake had doubted Yang, something she would never forgive herself for, but Weiss had fought tooth and nail to dispel Blake's doubt in her own partner.

The sound of cracking wood brought Blake drew her attention to the rear side of the encroaching grimm. Two massive Goliaths burst through the tree line, each almost twice the size of the next largest Grimm on the battlefield. Grimm like this are never found near cities, and never engaged. They were simply too powerful, too tough, and would require teams of perfectly coordinated Huntsmen and Huntresses to take them size of the Grimm was distressing enough, but even more horrifying was their were headed straight towards her group. Blake futilely readied her weapons again to try to take down these unkillable foes, when she saw Qrow look up and see the Grimm. Blake was confounded, now Qrow was smiling too.

"Get back!" Blake heard Qrow yell.

Just then, Blake noticed Pyrrha sprinting past her, in an attempt to get between her group and the lead Goliath.

"Get back, girl!" Qrow shouted at Pyrrha, but she refused to heed his command.

Blake got an idea, throwing both Gambol and Caper, firing them to give them more speed, she guided them so the wrapped around Pyrrha's waist, and she tried to pull the girl to safety.

"Yang help." Blake managed to grunt out over the strain.

Yang took one step towards Blake, grabbed the ribbons that connected Blake to her weapons, and pulled them back with all her strength. The quick change in force caused Blake to lose her footing, but Yang had succeeded in removing Pyrrha from the path of the rampaging behemoths. As Blake tried to get back up Pyrrha collided with her, knocking her to the ground again.

"Uhh… oops." Offered Yang as she stooped down to help the girls up.

Pyrrha sprang to her feet with incredible speed,

"How dare y..!" She started.

"Shhhhhhh." Qrow interrupted. "Just watch, maybe you'll learn something."

"This is gonna be good." Yang smirked to her. "I inherited part of his semblance, one day I hope to be this bad-ass."

In that instant the area around Taiyang exploded into a maelstrom of fire. The solitary man charged forward and leapt at the leading monstrosity. While in midair the inferno surrounding him began to coalesce into a form; the jaws of the giant fiery dragon met with the enormous Grimm at the same moment that Taiyang's fist connected with its mask. The armor on the Goliath shattered instantaneously, generating a shockwave the that sent fragments flying in a cone backwards, slaying the scores of lesser Grimm in its path. The second Goliath shrugged off the impact from the wave of destruction and kept charging. Taiyang launched himself at it, with the marvelous dragon following in his wake. Right before intercepting the Goliath, the man planted his foot to uppercut the Grimm. The dragon followed through the blow, causing the Grimm to erupt in a flaming geyser that rained burning pieces of Grimm over the back half of the battlefield, which in turn lit more of the creatures on fire and disrupted their charge. Taiyang knelt down in the impossibly large clearing he had created battlefield, the extreme use of his semblance had left him winded. The clearing didn't last for long as hundreds of new Grimm emerged from the forest, weaving their way through the flaming field to get at their prey.

Blake observed the new Grimm charging into the fray. These were lesser Grimm, but still dangerous due to the size of the group. Down the line she heard new sounds. The Grimm were getting close enough to the Huntsman and Huntresses that they were started to engage in melee combat; the determined defenders working together to take down Grimm far less powerful than the ones Taiyang had just killed by himself.

"Weiss, grab him." Blake heard her team leader squeak between shots from the oversized rifle she held in her hands.

Weiss pulled the blonde man off the battlefield using one of her glyphs. He looked physically exhausted, but he was, in fact, smiling.

 _What is wrong with this family?_ Blake thought to herself.

In that moment Pyrrha turned to face them, the demeanor on her face had changed.

"She is here."

* * *

 **Extra! Or Omake or whatever.  
** "Yang help!" The blonde heard her partner call out.  
She grumbled, reluctantly taking her eyes of her dad as she didn't want to miss what was going to happen next. The brawler stepped over and grabbed the two ribbons running past her and pulled as hard as she could, watching as Blake and Pyrrha crashed into each other in a heap tangled up in the ribbons.  
 _That kinky cat and her damn ribbons,_ Yang thought sarcastically.  
"Uhh... oops." She offered as she extended a hand to the two girls still entwined in the cloth strips.  
Ignoring their responses she smirked at Blake.  
"This is gonna be good. I inherited part of his semblance, one day I hope to be this bad-ass."  
Yang and her partner stood side by side and watched as the Elder Dragon wreaked havoc on the battlefield with only two punches. After the display of strength was over, Yang felt a nudge on her shoulder.  
"Hey, you have a coin?" Blake asked suspiciously.  
"Why?" The blonde responded.  
"So I can flip it." The cat faunus winked. "You're heads, and your dad is tails."

 **Jeez, who knew Blake had a thing for older men? Well, besides that whole Adam thing.  
Alright, story is picking up now I hope?**

 **Anyways, see you guys on Friday for Chapter 6: Busty Bombshells and the Butcher's Boot.  
I may need a new title...**


	6. Chapter 6: Bombshells and a Boot

**Author's Note: Another day saved by the editing powers of XenonRaumzeit. There were a few unholy run-on sentences he helped me exorcise.**

 **Zelindsay told me not to be a tease with my chapter titles. Something about promising people things that won't happen. I promise there is a boot, a butcher, a bombshell, and atleast one girl in this chapter. Then fanfic didn't let me make a chapter title that long.**

* * *

 _Present Day_

Blake and Penny caught up with Ruby and Weiss, to find that Ruby was still crying.

"I need to get this done, I am doing this for all of us." she choked through her sobs. "I'm going on alone. I don't want you three to get hurt, only I'm needed."

"Don't be so childish" Weiss spat back.

She didn't mean to be so rude, but it pained her to see the girl who was normally so persistently inclusive, so full of happiness, now trying to push those who cared about her away. Weiss tried to soften her attitude. This is when Ruby would need them the most. Weiss had watched the red-cloaked girl's life start to unravel from the moment she found out what Yang had done.

Weiss thought about the chain she had noticed on her partners neck and how the girl was so desperate to keep it concealed. It was made from the same metal and style as the rose that was perpetually attached to young girl's belt. Ruby had always said that the rose had been a handmade gift from Summer. The necklace helped verify Ruby's claim for their current mission, but Weiss still had the feeling that Ruby wasn't telling the whole truth. Regardless, the brunette had earned Weiss' trust, and the heiress was sure they would not be out here without a reason; plus Ozpin had approved of this search himself. Weiss struggled to find some way to convey her trust in her partner.

"We are here for you." Weiss continued. "After all we have been through together, do you think we would leave you by yourself?"

"You don't get it! You just don't understand." The anger and force behind her leader's voice caused Weiss and her teammates to take a step back."You don't know what this will take!" Ruby's voice began to climb in both volume and desperation. "She won't just appear, she only shows herself at the end. She will only come if there are no other options for my survival, no way out for me. I don't know how to make her stay." Ruby sank down onto the ground. Weiss didn't know what to say to her partner as she watched the girl's world continue to rip apart around her.

"It's ok, Ruby my friend." Penny spoke up assuredly, "We are ready for whatever it takes."

"Yeah." Blake added sincerely. "We are with you until the end."

Weiss knelt down next to her best friend and embraced her. "I just want you to be ok." She whispered.

* * *

 _Six Months Ago_

Weiss followed along behind Ruby, Jaune, and their respective teams as they chased after Pyrrha; running through the Beacon Academy campus and trying to avoid debris that was littered about due to months of continuous fighting. From the conversation they had with Pyrrha before the battle had started, they knew this upcoming conflict was inevitable. Sun, his team, and a contingent of guards were assigned to protect the entrance to Beacon's tower. According to Pyrrha, the false maiden would be coming to attempt to take the rest of Amber's powers, and Pyrrha was the only one who could stop her. Despite the strain between them, Jaune was the first to promise Pyrrha aid when it came to that point. Pyrrha had quickly tried to discourage him, but she was overwhelmed by Ruby and the rest of Pyrrha's former friends also pledging their promise to aid her in that moment when she would be required to fight her foe. When Pyrrha had relented to accept their aid, she had given them codes to be able to receive a distress signals from various teams scattered around Beacon.

Before leaving the battlefield, they had made sure that their spot in the defensive line was was filled. The last visual Weiss had of the fight was Coco and Velvet standing side by side between the recovering Taiyang and the Grimm, mercilessly mowing the charging beasts down with their oversized guns.

Weiss' scroll beeped at her. "I am getting a distress signal from Sun." she yelled urgently to her teammates ahead of her, haphazardly reading off her scroll while she ran. "They are under attack by that woman and her White Fang soldiers."

 _How did they manage to get that far into the academy grounds without being spotted,_ Weiss thought to herself, _did they tunnel again?_

After the first incident where the White Fang had tried to tunnel into Beacon, resulting in the capture and almost execution of Ruby, the Atlesian military had installed sensors all across the the surrounding area to make sure that any sort of infiltration couldn't happen again.

As they rounded a corner, Weiss realized her question to herself was going to need to wait to be answered. In front of them stood a wall of White Fang soldiers, accompanied by one of the stolen Atlesian Paladins. Ahead of her, Pyrrha did not break stride, the gladiator merely raised her shield and plowed her way through the crowd.

 _We need to keep up with her,_ Weiss thought, _but how do we get passed these brutes?_

Her question would be answered soon enough as she heard Ruby's voice float through the air.

"Jaune, Nora, up!" Weiss' faithful friend yelled.

Understanding quickly, Nora jumped up and with help from Jaune's shield, propelled herself upwards to a great height.

"Weiss, Yang, up!" Ruby's voice rang out again.

Yang charged forward as Weiss cast a glyph. Yang used it as a springboard to join her hammer wielding friend in the air.

"Bumblebee!" Ruby's voice called out one final time. Weiss heard Gambol fire off and looked up. The weapon reached Yang at the apex of Yang's leap. As Yang grabbed the weapon hilt, Blake pulled on it, increasing the speed at which the blonde plummeted back to the ground. In the background a boom sounded off, Nora's hammer. The two girls raced back towards the White Fang like a pair of comets. Weiss was amazed at the coordination of the improvised attack, and ran up to where her partner stood so she could watch the finale at the brunette's side.

The impact was both awe inspiring and terrible. Nora landed in the middle of the crowd of the terrorists, while Yang landed directly on the cockpit of the Paladin. The simultaneous explosions rocked the surrounding area, throwing the malign faunus across the courtyard and shattering the Paladin in a single blow. Yang and Nora walked out of the resulting dust cloud side by side.

"Ah yeah, talk about a couple of bombshells" Yang blurted out, offering a closed fist in the direction of Nora. The short redhead merely responded with a giggle and a smile, connecting her fist with Yang's.

Weiss felt exasperated, "And you call my jokes bad" Weiss said, slightly disgruntled.

Yang simply winked back at her. Weiss could not help but to smile back at the brawler. The tall blonde would make the worse puns, but she alway managed to make her teammates smile, even when Weiss did not feel like it. As Weiss continued to smile at Yang she realized how happy she was to have the fighter in her life. The heiress' childhood was one of loneliness, and her life would have most likely continued that way if she hadn't had the fortune of running into Ruby first in the emerald forest. Her and Yang's friendship had a rocky start, but once Yang had accepted her, her world changed. Yang had showed her all the sisterly love that she showed Ruby; defending her from detractors of her family and it's company, acquiescing to Weiss' demanding training schedule for the Vytal tournament double's round. In one very embarrassing situation, Yang even put her back in her bed and tucked her in after she had fallen out it while having a nightmare. The brawler then stayed at her side for hours, comforting her until the terrors passed. Weiss didn't wake up during that incident and would never have known it if Blake hadn't told her a few days later.

"We need to go" urged Jaune.

As the group took off, they quickly caught up to Pyrrha, as she fought her way through yet another group of the White Fang. Finishing the last of her attackers just as the group arrived, Pyrrha turned back towards them.

"We are almost there" The warrior stated. "We need to be careful now. She's incredibly powerful and will have her strongest lieutenants with her."

Before Pyrrha could turn back around to move on to her objective, they heard a yelp of pain.

"Sun!" Blake screamed.

The nine of them took off towards the sound they just heard. The scene Weiss saw as they rounded around the edge of the Beacon tower made her nauseous. The courtyard ahead of her was torn apart. The bodies of Atlesian and White Fang soldiers dotted the scenery making navigation a hazard. Neptune stood near the middle near another prone body that Weiss recognized as Scarlet. Neptune was doing the best he could to protect his injured friend, alternating between deflecting glass projectiles launched at him by the false maiden, and attempting to return fire. To the right she saw Sage desperately trying to to fend off the vertically stunted girl that they had seen on the train. Try as he might, Sage had been unable to even land a single blow on the neapolitan-haired girl.

Finally, as Weiss' continued running towards the conflict, she looked to the left and saw Sun. He managed to hit Emerald in the chest with a blast from his gun-chucks. Transforming the two parts of his weapon back into a staff, he started to engage Mercury. With a sweep of his staff, he knocked Mercury off his feet, but before he could pursue his fallen target a chain wrapped around his chest, binding his arms to his side. Emerald smiled as she yanked Sun off his feet. Laughing, Mercury got to his feet and walked over to Sun's prone body. Looking up at Pyrrha and her allies he placed his boot on Sun's head.

"Looks like you got here just in time." Mercury smirked. The blast from his boot echoed throughout the courtyard.

* * *

 **Hey! See you on Tuesday with Chapter 7: The Final Battle Begins.**


	7. Chapter 7: The Final Battle Begins

**Author's Note: Happy Tuesday!  
Holy crap, who saw Episode 11!? Velvet's weapon is so sweet. I need to go back an edit a previous chapter now to accommodate for that I think.  
My poor Yang. She only wanted to punch someone.  
Why Torchwick? You were supposed to outlast Cinder and steal our hearts as the main villain again.**

 **On a more informative note, I know that my story will have 17 chapters and an epilogue, and providing my editors can spare me the time to correct my endless mistakes, will be released on time every Tuesday and Friday. Speaking of which, thanks to XenonRaumzeit for editing.**

* * *

 _Present Day_

Ruby gripped her friend tightly.

"Thank you." she whispered back.

Relieved that her partner continued to maintain the hug, she clung to her tightly. After the final battle had concluded at Beacon, the silver-haired girl had become permanently attached to her. Always a step behind her, always there when she needed someone. When Ruby had awakened in the middle of the night screaming from nightmares and cried herself to sleep from grief, the heiress was always present, always taking care of her. Ruby looked over at Blake. The girl also had never left Ruby's side. More than once Ruby and Blake had fallen asleep sobbing in each other's arms. For months after they had defeated Cinder, Blake had been a shell of her former self, trying to cope with the loss of those closest to her.

' _For me it was just one person, but Blake lost Sun as well.'_ Ruby thought to herself.

Ruby gathered her strength, gently relinquishing her her grip on Weiss and rising out of the warm hug she had given Ruby.

"Where to now?" Blake inquired. Ruby, not responding, stepped forward and gave the faunus a hug.

Ruby kept the hug brief, but when she pulled away she felt moisture rub off of Blake's face and onto her own. She took in the view of her teammate. Even before Yang's passing, the girl had already impacted Ruby's life. All of Ruby's childhood she had a habit of falling asleep in random places around her father's house and Yang would always carry her to bed and tuck her in. This behavior carried on with her to Beacon.

Ruby would often fall asleep while studying, but it didn't matter if it happened at her desk in their dorm or all the way across campus at the library. Yang would still pick her up, carry her to her bed, and tuck her in without waking her. One night, when Yang was out late training with Weiss for the Vytal tournament, Ruby had fallen asleep in the library. She woke up upon hearing the beep of the a scroll unlocking a door. Clearing her head of sleepiness, she cracked her eyes open, expecting to see the long golden locks of her sister. Instead her vision had been filled by midnight black. Ruby made sure to hold on extra tight to her teammate for the rest of the trip, smiling inwardly as she was tucked in. She was careful not to alert the faunus she had awoken.

Blake had become another sister to her, and she was willing to do anything for the amber-eyed girl. After Yang's death Blake had tried to fill her shoes for Ruby's sake, and there was no way Ruby could ever repay her kindness.

From there Ruby looked over at Penny. Penny hadn't known Yang well, but she was still there for Ruby in the aftermath. Ruby briefly embraced Penny as well.

Stepping back Ruby addressed her team.

"There are legends of a large white beowolf in the woods." Ruby pointed to the forest that her team had been walking towards. "Even though our mission was kept of the public books, Ozpin needed an official reason to send us on this mission. This is our reason. A large beowolf has been terrorizing nearby towns and villages and is said to be unkillable."

Her team looked at the forest, and Ruby began walking towards it at a rapid pace.

"We better get this over with sooner, rather than later." Ruby stated quickly as she strode towards their goal.

' _Hopefully, this will be unkillable enough to make the shadow stay.'_ Ruby mused as her team started to follow her. _'Why does she always leave? She said she loved me, she promised that she loved me. Everyone always told me that she loved me, so why does she leave?'_

Ruby felt her emotions start to plummet again. She took a deep breath and steadied herself. Either way, this will be over soon.

* * *

 _Six Months Ago_

"No!" Neptune's pleading voice saturated the battlefield.

"No more!" Shouted Pyrrha as she tore across the courtyard towards the imposter fall maiden. "You won't take anymore lives."

Yang and her companions followed Pyrrha into battle. Yang made a straight line towards the neapolitan-themed fighter still engaging Sage in combat. As she approached the dueling pair, another horde of White Fang reinforcements came running into the fray. The leading faunus opened fire on Sage, breaking his attention from his foe. The tall teenager attempted to block as many of the incoming rounds as possible with his sword but was forced to use his aura to repel the slugs that he couldn't deflect with his weapon. The sheer volume of firepower focused in his direction caused him to stagger backwards. Before Yang could reach Sage she heard a strange sound. She looked from the White Fang footmen to Sage, only to see him collapse as his diminutive opponent withdrew her sword from his chest.

"Ren, Nora, Penny, take out those troops!" Jaune's command came too late. Regardless, his three teammates vaulted past Yang to get to the terrorists.

Yang squared herself up against the other woman.

' _If she wasn't such a psychopath, the tiny colorful woman would actually be kind of cute.'_ Yang thought to herself. ' _But right now, she only deserved to die.'_

"I learned to use this just for you" Yang said menacingly to the familiar visage.

Yang pulled the collapsed glaive out of its holster on her back and held it out in front of her. Yang extended the weapon into its full form, the tip of the blade stopped mere inches away from the criminal's face.

"This time you won't win." Yang stated adamantly.

* * *

Weiss moved quickly after Neptune's shout rang out. She used her semblance, mixed with her ice dust, to turn Emerald into a statue encased within the frosty material.

' _That won't hold her long.'_ Weiss thought.

She recognized the danger of the situation. Emerald had shown herself to be proficient in manipulating her foe's minds to make them think that other people were in a different places than they actually were, performing actions that they weren't actually doing, or even make herself appear invisible. Luckily, the thief had also shown in previous engagements that she could only actively deceive one person at a time while in combat, and it took focus.

As the ice around Emerald started to crack, Weiss scrambled as she prepared to use a new glyph. She started to focus, needing to cast out all thoughts of doubts in her mind.

' _Come on Weiss.'_ she coached herself, you can do this. ' _Just breath and focus.'_

The heiress released her energy into her glyph just as Emerald had managed to break free from the the ice, falling to her knees. Fortunately for Weiss, she had succeeded in her task; unfortunately for Emerald, the green-haired girl stood up only to come face to face with a giant suit of armor.

* * *

"You're dead!" The words had barely made their way out of Blake's mouth before she sprang at Mercury, side by side with Ruby. Before they could reach the butcher, a shadow detached itself from the column next to them and dropped down in front of Blake, knocking Ruby to the side.

"Not so fast" the shadow spoke as it removed its hood.

' _Adam!'_ Blake thought as she froze.

Adam spoke as he approached Blake with his hand outreached. "You're coming with me. I'm bringing you back home."

' _Move Blake, move.'_ she thought frantically to herself.

She couldn't move. Her past kept catching up with her. The decision the former cult member faced left her paralyzed with uncertainty; she couldn't flee from her past anymore, but she also couldn't bring herself to fight her former mentor.

As Adam started to walk forward, closing the gap between the masked faunus and his former partner, Blake finally managed to get herself to flinch backwards a fraction of an inch. Adam stopped only a few feet away from Blake.

"Why do you affiliate yourself with these humans?" Adam questioned her. "They have continued to manipulate and use you. You are nothing more than a pet to them."

"Th-that's not true" Blake stuttered back.

"Really Blake?" The black and red clad swordsman continued, crossing his arms over his chest. "If you really believe they cared for you as an equal, why do you still wear that bow? Deep down inside you know they could never accept you."

Blake tried to form a response. She had nothing at which to fight back with. She always told herself she wore the bow to avoid discrimination from the intolerant people of the world. What if she really was wearing the bow to hide from her friends too? Was she was so afraid of losing the acceptance of her teammates she had come to admire? Did she keep hidden the constant reminder that she was not a human like them so they would treat her like an equal?

"I-I-I…." she tried to speak again but she couldn't get any words out.

With Adam here she couldn't think straight. He had always been so charming and convincing face to face. He was so easily able to convince Blake to do what he wanted, to believe what he said was the truth.

"I came to this battle today only for you, to bring you home with me, to keep you safe. You are missing from our lives. The White Fang needs you back, I need you back, to be strong again." Adam took a step forward extending his hand once again to Blake. "It's time for us to leave this place behind. It's time for you to come home."

The faunus girl continued to struggle with herself to move as Adam's hand got within inches of her face. She was becoming entranced with his words. He had always made her feel important. As his hand touched her face, his own visage twisted into a look of agony. The terrorist howled in pain reaching down and grabbing his leg. Blake saw red glass blade protruding from her former friend's thigh. Ruby snapped the blade off so that it would would stay in the terrorist leader.

"Go!" The red girl urged. "Get Mercury, I'll take care of him."

Mercury! Adam may have raised her in darkness, but Mercury was the one who just snuffed out one of the lights out of her life, she couldn't let him take the other.

* * *

Jaune, still reeling from Sun's fate and the sight of what the White Fang soldiers and that small woman did to Sage. He recovered long enough to command his team forward, to make sure the White Fang couldn't take a free shot at anyone else. He looked up at Neptune. The young man stood there shell-shocked, having just watched his best friend be executed. Jaune ran up to him.

"Neptune." The blue-haired boy ignored him.

"Neptune!" Jaune tried again to get the boys attention.

' _We don't have time for this.'_ Jaune decided on his course of action. He reached up and grabbed Neptune's shirt by scruff of his collar and pulled him so they made eye contact.

"We need to try to save them," Jaune started forcefully. "I need you to snap out of this. I need you to help me take your team, these wounded soldiers, to safety."

Jaune maintained his eye contact with the other boy.

' _You were wrong Pyrrha.'_ Jaune thought. ' _A hero doesn't need to raise a blade to save people.'_

Neptune's eyes blinked back into focus, finally becoming aware of the rest of the area around him. The gunshots that filled the air, the crackling of ice forming, the peal of weapons colliding with each other, the shrieks of pain. He focused on Jaune's eyes.

"You're right… Let's save them."

* * *

 **Wow, a bit of an OOC moment for Ruby? Remember, she has been fighting the Grimm and White Fang nonstop for almost 3 months. A little increase in brutality seemed in place. Speaking of which, we have some fun combat moments coming up in Chapter 9!**

 **XenonRaumzeit is a big fan of Baked Alaska, so he wrote a small fight scene between Yang and Neo.  
** Yang and Neo fought bravely and beautifully, more a dance than a battle. When both were finally worn out without even scratching the other, they realized the truth. They were made for each other. Each grasping the other's hand, they skipped free from the battlefield to spend the rest of their lives together. Lives filled with dates, ice cream, and a whole gaggle of multi-haired children with no respect for concrete eye colors. And they lived happily ever after. The end.

 **Alright, see you guys on Friday for Chapter 8: Pants on Fire.**


	8. Chapter 8: Pants on Fire

**Author's Note: Well hello there! I apologize for the later than normal post. Tax season is starting to hit my firm hard so I didn't get this chapter finalized until almost midnight last night. Zelindsay was gracious enough to pull my ass out of the fire and edit for me at 1am. So now I am getting this posted by phone. Hopefully it works.**

 **Hello to my new followers and favoriters, you make my world go round.**

 **Do you think my boss will accept "I had to watch the RWBY finale" as a reason for being late to work tomorrow?**

* * *

 _Present Day_

The girls had traveled through the forest for another week and a half searching for their illusive target and stopping at villages to inquire about the legend. They fought many beowolves along the way, some of them giant, ancient, and powerful, but all of them had the standard dark fur; none wore the pale fur they sought. As they continued to trudge through the forest, they stumbled across a large clearing.

Ruby halted her team's progress as she took some deep breaths to calm her nerves and observe the serene sight before her. Perfectly circular and not a single rock or fallen branch to be seen. The clearing was exactly as described to her by the villagers she questioned whenever none of her other teammates were around. It was a pleasant sight, the wind caused ripples along the foot tall wild grass that was growing uniformly throughout the area until it met the tree line and sharply turned to various different shrubs and other undergrowth.

"I think we are getting very close," Ruby said. "Many of the villagers I questioned about the white beowolf mentioned a clearing identical to this."

Ruby felt bad. She always felt bad when she lied. The brunette had no idea how close they could be to their 'official' target. This was how she felt when she talked to Ozpin about sending them on this mission as well.

She had originally gone to Ozpin with information on how a woman with power matching that of a maiden was spotted in this area. Ozpin had denied the request, stating that the area was too dangerous for just three Huntresses-in-Training to manage. So feeling a sense of utter desperation, she lied to him.

The young girl had then requested to be sent on a scouting mission in an area that was about a hundred and fifty miles away from the previous location; stating that she needed to be active to recover from her grief. Glynda had objected with a suspicious look on her face, but Ozpin eventually relented, demanding only that Ruby find a fourth person to accompany them.

When Ruby had left Ozpin's office, she frantically tried to research a tangible excuse she could give her team as to why they would have to travel by foot, and what they were looking for. Ruby managed to dig up the recent stories of a white beowolf that resided in the general area that she wanted to travel to, and a series of villages they could stop in to question people. Finally, all she had left to do was to find a fourth person, someone she could trust. As she stepped out of her dorm room she bumped into Penny, who was coincidentally coming to check up on Ruby herself. Penny quickly agreed to travel with them on their mission; yet another reason for Ruby to feel guilty. The young robot was too innocent and naive to even imagine that Ruby could be lying to her.

They left early in the morning two days after her conversation with Ozpin. Ruby had been in a rush to get the mission going, to limit the possibilities of her plan being discovered. The bullhead pilot dropped them off in the assigned location, and confirmed that he would be back in two weeks, when their scouting mission was slated to be finished. That mission deadline was supposed to be completed almost two weeks ago, but Ruby and her team had been out of the range of the communication towers for even longer than that. The moment her team had disembarked from their transport, Ruby had sent them on a quick march towards the nearest village outside of the communications range. To maintain the deception, Ruby had insisted on making all scheduled check-ins from the village terminals by herself, feeding true information on the areas they had scouted back to Beacon, but disguising their real location. On the final check-in she had sent an encrypted message to Ozpin apologizing and informing him of what her true plans were, but not providing him with enough information to track her team down.

"Remember," Ruby told her team. "Killing the white beowolf is our objective here, what I want, my reasons for being out here, are secondary." Ruby's voice started to crack and break, "When the Grimm is dead, we are going home."

"Affirmative." Penny responded for the rest of her team.

As her team started to traverse the outside perimeter of the clearing Ruby continued to reflect on what she had done. The guilt of deceiving her teammates and putting them at risk continued to build up inside of her, she tried to suppress it; it was starting to make her nauseous. Despite her best efforts, after only a few more steps Ruby bent over and vomited.

"Ruby!" Blake yelled with concern. "Are you ok?"

"I'm ok, really, I'm…" her stomach would not allow her to lie again so soon.

"Are you sure you're ok?" Blake persisted.

"Yes." Ruby kept her reply short, not allowing her stomach a chance to betray her a third time.

Ruby tried to straighten her body up into a standing position, but her stomach was still too queasy for her to move. Instead she opted to look up at her faunus teammate. The raven-haired girl had an expression of worry and distress. She understood the anxiety of watching a teammate suddenly expunge the contents of their stomach in front of you, but the magnitude of concern on Blake's face seemed to be more than the situation should have called for.

"Because you just pulled out some of your hair." Blake said worriedly, "This isn't the first time I've seen you do it either."

Ruby looked at her hand in horror, there was indeed about half a dozen strands of her hair entwined in her fingers. Ruby didn't even remember her hand going near her hair, nor did she feel any pain in her head that would normally be associated with hair being pulled. Her distress continued to grow as she stared and the red and brown hairs in her hand.

 _This will be worth it,_ she tried to convince herself, _this won't have been in vain._

Weiss quickly approached her with a handkerchief. Standing between the two girls she handed the napkin to Ruby and took Ruby's other arm and putting it over her shoulder.

"Come on Ruby. You need to rest." She tried to console her partner. "We just need to move away from this mess and we can set up camp."

 _Weiss you deserve a better leader than me_ , Ruby thought trying to quell her guilt.

Blake and Yang were like older sisters to her, but Weiss had always meant something different, she was her best friend.

 _I'm so sorry for what I'm putting you through_ , Ruby continued to plead with herself as her partner guided her through the forest. _I promise that somehow, I will make this up to you. Even when this is all done and you can't bear my presence anymore, I will always be indebted to you._

After setting Ruby down, Weiss and Penny proceeded to set up the camp while Blake got to work on making dinner. Ruby watched Blake prepare the food while sitting next to the newly made campfire. Trying to figure out a way to quell her guilt and idly picking at the bark of the fallen tree she was sitting on, she got an idea.

"I never did tell you how I found out did I?" Ruby started talking out loud to no one in particular.

Blake stopped fiddling with the various pots and the dust powered stove she recently set up and looked up at Ruby, "Found out what?"

"How she was still alive." Ruby looked over at Weiss and Penny, they were too busy to hear them. The crackling of the campfire and sizzling of food cooking helped provide more background and prevented their voices from carrying to the other half of their team.

"Your mother?"

"Hmm?" Ruby was confused for a split second, then forced a smile. "Yeah, her."

"We don't need to talk about this right now if you don't want to." Blake said calmly.

The faunus started to turn her attention back to her task at hand. The show of how she did it let Ruby know that she wasn't going to press her team leader for details that the brunette didn't want to give. Ruby decided to press forward with it, yearning in her desire to assuage some of her guilt.

"No, it's fine. It's just weird hearing you talk like that."

"Ok." Blake looked a little perplexed.

"Don't worry about it" Ruby tried to smile again at her teammate. "Remember that day you and Weiss made me go on the walk to the forest near Beacon with you? It was about a month before we left to go on this mission."

"Yes, I remember." Blake responded, her voice sounding a little more cheery, "You were being a pain about it the whole time. Well, except near the end, you seemed to just start spacing out."

"That's when I saw her. It was at a distance but I am sure of it. She was sitting in the sun against a tree, but when she noticed me she quickly got up and with a flash of light she was gone" Ruby felt her smile fade. "It took me almost a month to figure out what I needed to do. My decision was made when I returned to that spot a few weeks later and I was attacked by a pack of beowolves. It was too many for me to handle and they took me down. I woke up with a shadow on me. When I opened my eyes the shadow was gone, I was laying in the sun with all the beowolves dead around me."

Blake stared at her, seemingly processing the information. As the faunus idly stirred the soup that was cooking on the small camp stove in front of her, she opened her mouth as if to ask another question when she heard footsteps approach.

"Is dinner ready yet?" Weiss asked as she walked up, breaking the two out of their conversation.

Blake eyed the food in front of her as if trying to pass judgement on its progress, "Only a few more minutes."

After they set up camp and ate, the three other girls coaxed Ruby into going to bed just as the sun was starting to set. Ruby tried to resist, but she simply didn't have the energy, so she relented with only a minimal argument. As she lay there she heard Blake and Weiss talking in hushed tones.

"Weiss, I don't think Ruby can keep going on like this." Blake appealed to her teammate.

"I know Blake, but I don't have the heart to try to stop her. This is the only thing she has left." Weiss whispered back.

"No, it's worse than you think." Blake responded, "It's not just the hair thing, she hasn't been eating either. She chews down the food when people are watching, but she usually just throws it back up later. She tries to be very careful to make sure no one is looking when when she hides her food or pulls out her hair; but I don't think she remembers, or even has the ability right now to remember, that my heritage gives me better eyesight, hearing, and sense of smell."

Weiss hesitated for a moment to think.

"We will give her one more full day to find this beowolf." Weiss decided. "If we don't find it by tomorrow, we will convince her we need to head back. We will need to make a reason to leave though; accidently destroying some of our supplies... or something like that."

"Agreed" Blake concluded. "For now we need to get some sleep too."

* * *

 **So, I am going to be straight with you guys. Poor little Ruby is in for a rough time. But I do have this fixation with happy endings, well happyish endings.**

 **In the meantime, a nice fun story to check out is Oh Schneezus! by jin0uga. Its fun and happy.**

 **See you all Tuesday for Chapter 9: Nailed It!**


	9. Chapter 9: Nailed it!

**Author's Note: Hello there people! Especially my new followers and favoriters.  
Sooo... I'm a little pissed at Blake from the season finale. Three years (one for them) of character development, gone. I didn't even get to see Yang punch anyone either.**

 **Well, now I can officially saw that my story is shooting off from the story canon and continue to fly off as far and fast as possible. No looking back now.**

 **Further more, I apologize for two reasons, first, this chapter is combat heavy. Second... I am just sorry for the postings this week, okay?**

* * *

Six Months Ago

As Ruby charged towards Mercury with Blake she felt something impact her, knocking her head first into the ground. Ruby had activated her aura in time, and while the forcefield took the impact of the blow, it still left the girl discombobulated and her vision blurry. As her sight cleared, she looked up to find Blake standing frozen, a faunus man extending his arm towards Blake's face. Ruby had to make a decision now, trying to use her Scythe would take too long, the weapon couldn't be drawn quick enough. Acting on instinct, Ruby growled and and propelled herself at the man, generating a glass blade from her right gauntlet.

She reached the pair just as his hand made contact with Blake's face. Ruby grabbed his left leg and plunged the blade as hard as she could into the back of his thigh. Lucky for Ruby, the man was enthralled with whatever it was he was trying to do with Blake and did not have his aura fully activated, leaving him vulnerable to an attack. Her blade swiftly sunk deep into its victim's legs. Pushing off the ground with her feet, Ruby twisted her arm so the blade snapped off of it's gauntlet, retaining its position in the faunus' limb.

Ruby drew herself to her full height and tried to make herself look intimidating despite her short stature. She now recognized the man from a drawing in Blake's notebook.

"Go!" Ruby yelled to her teammate, pulling the girl out of her haze. "Get Mercury, I'll take care of him."

Blake took off towards the butcher. Ruby tried to keep Adam's focus on her to give her onyx-haired teammate time to get away from the man. Blake had warned them about Adam several months ago. She told them all about how the terrorist leader had been seen in some engagements around Vale and Beacon. Blake also had warned them how powerful of a fighter the man was and how persuasive he could be. It was apparent the effect that Adam had on Blake was worse than she had predicted, and that left Ruby to fight him by herself.

"Damn girl," Adam grimaced as he pulled the blade out of his leg. His aura now active and stopping the blood from spilling from his leg. "You have no right to interfere."

Ruby thought of her position. If what Blake told them was true, Adam was a very proficient swordsman, and incredibly agile fighter. Even though his aura would prevent him from bleeding out, it would still take days before he could use his leg properly. Ruby's hand reached back for her scythe but stopped. If he was part of the red woman's plan, then he would likely have been briefed on how to defend against Ruby's signature weapon.

 _He wouldn't know about my new weapons though, would he?_ Ruby debated with herself.

Blake said he was a tactful fighter that always researched his opponents. Deciding it was worth the risk, Ruby smiled at the faunus and activated the blades on both of her gauntlets.

"Oh, you're not going to use a real weapon against me?" Adam quipped at her, "I was hoping to see a more 'magnificent' weapon in combat, but I guess it's just simply too good for me." Adam continued to needle at her. "You probably can't even use it properly. Shame, all your time and training gone to waste."

Ruby felt irritation build within her. She started to reach back for the scythe a second time, before stopping and growling at her opponent. This is exactly what he wants.

"I hope you weren't thinking I was insulting you, it's really just your weapon that I think is worthless." Adam taunted again.

 _That was it,_ Ruby concluded, _he really does want me to use my scythe against him._

The brunette leaned forward in a starting stance and charged at the terrorist. She saw him smile and she new what was coming next. Using her semblance for a burst of speed she managed to dive over the sword being drawn, slashing at Adam's left arm as she passed by him.

The blow knocked Adam slightly off balance. He started to turn to face his red-cloaked opponent, cocking his arm back preparing to strike again.

"Why you little human c-" His sentence was cut off as he completed his turn to receive the heel of Ruby's boot directly to his teeth.

Reeling back the injured man attempted to retain his balance on his one good leg. Changing his grip on the sheathe in his left hand, he moved his finger to the trigger as he aimed it at his foe. Adam opened fire on Ruby, causing her to expend a large portion of her energy using her semblance to dash back and forth to dodge the incoming dust slugs. Finally getting the proper angle on her attacker, Ruby rushed him again, blades held above her head to deflect the inevitable counter attack. Adam's sword swung down, breaking one of Ruby's blades and notching the other, causing his sword to get stuck in the blade.

Taking advantage of the situation, Ruby reformed her broken blade; slashing at the swordsman's wrist while pulling back on the entrapped sword, disarming it from Adam's grip. Before Adam could react, Ruby kicked him on the side of his good knee, knocking him over. Stepping over his prone body, Ruby stomped on his previously injured leg, causing him to writhe on the ground in pain before passing out. Just in time, Ruby thought as she heard a voice filter through the background fighting.

"Help me Ruby!"

* * *

The giant suit of armor swung its sword at Emerald, smashing through her desperate attempt to guard herself from the blow, and driving her into the ground. Weiss watched as Emerald's guns went flying out of her hands as the ground fractured underneath the green-haired girl. Weiss' joy was short lived as she heard something go whizzing past her head. Weiss, relying on her summoned companion to keep the thief occupied, turned around to see another group of White Fang troops advancing on her position. This was a small number of troops, but she couldn't allow them to flank her teammates and friends.

Leaning forward in a runner's stance, she pushed off her back leg extending her rapier forward, causing her to slide towards the group. As she passed through the group she activated the ice dust in Myrtenaster, freezing the feet of about half the enemy combatants to the ground. As the rest turned to open fire, the heiress jumped out of her slide performing two consecutive handsprings and summoning a glyph in the air above her. After pushing off with her hands in the second handspring, the snow-colored girl performed a pirouette mid air, bringing her feet in contact with her glyph. Diving off the glyph, sword point first, she landed in between the frozen faunus terrorists, knocking them to the side and out of fighting condition.

With only four opponents left the blue-eyed girl realized that they had superior flanking position on her; if she didn't move she could be caught in severe cross fire. Creating two dust blasts directed towards her one adversary that had not been standing in cover, Weiss jumped over the stone her second target was using for cover. Her rapier made quick work of the White Fang footman directly in front of her, and the sharp, painful yell she heard meant that her dust blasts had taken care of their target too. The heiress poked her head out of cover, there were just the two faunus left. Her two remaining challengers opened fire on her moments after her head became visible to them.

 _Think Weiss,_ she said to herself while she tried to strategize her next move.

She was pinned down by gunfire and would not have enough time to cast another dust blast. Weiss shifted onto her right hip to try to reposition herself when the painful lump she felt in her leg reminded her of another option. Rolling out of cover, Weiss created a dust barrier with her left hand as she aimed Osiria with her right hand. Her first two shots missed the enemy combatants by a small margin, causing one of them to duck his head. The other tried to keep firing at the heiress, but Weiss' third shot caught her in the shoulder, breaking her aura in one shot.

 _One left,_ Weiss thought.

Across the battlefield she heard Emerald's voice call out in pain.

"Cinder!"

 _So that is the woman's name,_ Weiss thought to herself.

Weiss' moment of success ended when she watched the false maiden leap back from her fight with Pyrrha and throw a fireball at her summoned armor, melting it into a solid piece so it couldn't move anymore. Frustrated at the situation, the heiress spun the cylinder on her rapier and produced her own fire attack directed towards the final White Fang soldier in hiding. The soldier ran out from cover to avoid the flame, only to get hit in the chest by two rounds from Osiria.

The blue-eyed girl turned on her heel and ran back towards where her summoned armor had pinned Emerald. Weiss stopped short as she saw Emerald slowly stagger to her feet with one of her pistols in her hand; the thief smiled at Weiss before vanishing. Instinctively, Weiss created another dust barrier. Moments after the barrier sprang into existence, several green bullets appeared out of nowhere and collided with it. Weiss didn't know what to do, she could not fight an opponent she couldn't see.

"Help me Ruby." Weiss was surprised at the words that just jumped out of mouth.

She wanted to be safe so she called the person she knew could make that happen.

In the blink of an eye, her world became surrounded in rose petals as Ruby tackled a nearby column of air. Landing hard the the brunette rolled across the cobblestone of the courtyard leaving Emerald splayed across the ground as she became visible to the heiress again. Emerald jumped to her feet quickly, gun still in hand; but now that weapon was pointed at Weiss' exhausted partner. Weiss aimed and pulled the trigger on her own revolver before the snake could injure Ruby. The bullet shattered Emerald's aura and tore through the thief's hand, throwing the bloody gun across the battlefield and leaving its owner on her knees crying and grasping her shredded appendage. At that moment Weiss had no thoughts but to check on her hooded savoir.

* * *

Yang smiled as she saw the smug look briefly vanish from the diminutive criminal's face. The woman blinked, and cocked her head to the side. Yang noticed that one of her eyes turned from brown to pink, and that she was once again wearing the smug look on her face. Yang and her opponent stood only a few feet apart, staring at each other in hostile silence.

 _How familiar this feels,_ Yang reflected, _though this time I am ready for her._

Yang tightened the grip on her weapon, daring her opponent to make the first move. Her glaive would guarantee that she would be victorious in the battle. After Yang had rescued Ruby, and inspired her to build her gauntlets, Yang had inquired with Ruby, Blake, and Weiss on how she could be prepared in the future against opponents who were strong against her brawler style; they settled on a glaive that could compact into a single-edged, one-handed blade.

Ruby had helped Yang build it, but it was Blake who had unknowingly named it. One day when Blake had come back from one of her walks, she told Yang she had a present for her. She refused to tell Yang what it was until after Ruby and Weiss had left for dinner. When they did, the faunus presented her with a beautiful Fire Lily that she had found that day. Yang was confused. Blake had been spending her time with Sun, why would her combat partner bring her a flower? Flustered, the faunus had refused to say anything. She blushed and left to join Ruby and Weiss for dinner. After the glaive had been built, Yang decided to name it 'Superba' after the flower Blake had given her. Yang felt a twinge of sadness as she let go of her memories to return her focus to the fight.

Deciding that if this fight was going to end in a timely manner she was going to have to strike first. Yang confidently stepped towards her opponent and delivered a traditional downward slash, making sure she didn't over extend herself and could still capitalize on the range and defensive capabilities of her new weapon. As the colorful girl dodged out of the way of the polearm, Yang was pleased to see that she was unable to counter attack with her parasol or kicks due to the length of Superba.

Continuing her her assault, Yang stepped forward and performed a series of jabs at her opponent, though none were able to land a hit. Once Yang pulled back on the last jab, the diminutive crook hooked the end of her parasol to the glaives head and tried to use the momentum to get within the brawler's guard with a flying kick. The blonde deftly leaned to the side avoiding the kick by a fraction of an inch before leaning back into her opponent, causing her shoulder to collide with the neapolitan-haired fighter's chin. A sick crack was heard as the other girl's head snapped back while being thrown to the ground.

Yang's advantage only lasted a few seconds, not long enough for her to capitalize on it, before the criminal leapt back onto her feet. Yang moved to a more aggressive stance starting to spin the glaive around her in a elegant infinite pattern, Her foe opened her parasol, parrying each strike in turn, trying to find an opening to counter attack with. Yang feinted over extending on one of her strikes and her opponent took the bait; backflipping over the low strike and pivoting while closing the parasol and jabbing it forward towards Yang's throat. Prepared for the move, the brawler grabbed the end of the parasol and pulled it to the side and wrenching it out of its owner's hands.

While she disarmed the criminal, Yang left herself open to a counter attack. Her opponent used the moment from the brawler pulling on the parasol before releasing it and using the energy to land a vicious kick to the blonde's head. Recovering fast, Yang swung the parasol, handle first, and struck the ice cream themed girl on the shoulder, knocking her backwards. Content at the effect, the blonde leaned her glaive against her own shoulder, letting go of it. Using both hands she infused her aura into her muscles and bent the parasol into a ninety degree angle, casting it to the side. The reaction from her foe was not what she expected. Instead of looking angry, the diminutive fighter looked like she was on the verge of tears. The criminal stepped forward, pressing the offensive.

"Yang watch out!" She heard Blake's voice somewhere behind her.

Parrying the latest kick from her opponent Yang stepped back to increase the distance between the two of them and turned to locate Blake. While she was turning, the blonde noticed balls of silver energy flying at her. Kneeling down to reduce her cross section, she simultaneously spun Superba with one hand, deflecting the incoming blasts from Mercury, while punching the ground with Ember Celica. The explosion from her wristlet caught her smug attacker mid air, while she was trying to take advantage of Yang's divided attention, and knocked her upwards. After deflecting the last of Mercury's projectiles Yang jumped up to meet her foe, collapsing Superba into its shorter one handed form while performing a butterfly twist; the blade caught the other girl across the stomach, rocketing her to the ground. The blonde landed next to her adversary and placed Superba back in its holster. Reaching down, Yang grabbed the small woman by her collar with one hand and lifted her up to make eye contact while bringing her own arm back, positioning it to strike. The look of defeat and sadness in the girl's eyes made her hesitate. The small woman's eyes both turned to pale white as she slowly reached up towards Yang's face; her hand came away from the brawler's face with a few strands of blonde hair in its grasp. As the girl's collar started to tear away, Yang heard the whine of a semblance charging, then she was gone.

* * *

Blake rushed at the silver-haired butcher, trying to shake the influence of Adam out of her head. Blake was horrified to see the young man step into a kick, launching several projectiles at Yang, who was busy fighting in her rematch against Torchwick's short henchwoman.

"Yang watch out!" Blake screamed, trying to alert her partner.

Dread filled her heart as she watched the projectiles close in on the blonde. At the last second she saw the brawler turn towards the incoming rounds; spinning her glaive, she managed to deflect all of the dust blasts. Blake turned her attention back to Mercury, throwing Caper at him. As the chain-scythe wrapped around Mercury's raised leg, Blake stopped running, simultaneously pulling back on Caper's ribbon and opening fire on the young man with Gambol. Several of her shots impacted on Mercury before he could free himself from Caper and regain his balance.

Blake held the ribbons to both her weapons, starting to swing them in complex patterns trying to strike Mercury at range. She recognized the danger that the kickboxer presented at close distances. While the butcher was able to dodge in and out of strikes, avoiding contact with Blake's weapons, he was unable to close the distance to strike back at the dancing faunus. Changing his tactics, Mercury seemingly started haphazardly launching projectiles in random directions while he dodged. Blake remembered the technique that Mercury had used against both Yatsuhashi and Yang while in the Vytal Festival tournament. The spark of memory caused her to look up as the swarm of silver projectiles rained down on her. Unlike his previous victims, Blake had the perfect defense against his attack. She jumped backwards, using her semblance to leave behind one of her clones to take the colossal impact of the attack.

Even though she had avoided his attack, she was far from safe. Blake was unable to discern the location of Mercury through all the dirt that had been kicked up. To be safe, the amber-eyed girl created another clone of herself, leaping backwards again; that decision turned out to save her once more. Moments after she had lept backwards, Mercury landed on her deceptive shell, shattering it. The fortunate faunus opened fire at pointblank range with her twin handguns, scoring numerous hits on her opponent before he could react. Mercury sprang at her again, leading with a kick. In desperation Blake dodged to the side, propelling herself off a third clone, unfolding her swords as she swung them in the direction she had been previously standing, unleashing two beams of energy.

The beams collided with Mercury in midair. The first beam collided with the the silver-haired boy's midsection, breaking his aura and knocking him off course; the second beam intersected with the ankle of his forward foot, severing it from his body. Blake approached her fallen foe cautiously, the fact that he hadn't made any sounds even though he just lost a limb made her nervous. As she got within a few feet of his prone body she understood why, his legs were mechanical. Blake made eye contact with the man who killed her friend, his eyes were filled with hatred.

"You're going to pay for what you did, what you tried to do." Blake coldly informed him as she sheathed Gambol.

 _This is rather symbolic,_ she thought to herself as she hefted Caper, the sword Yang named for me will keep her safe.

Blake reached down and grabbed Mercury's intact leg by the boot; pulling it up, she brought Caper down on the mechanical joint, separating the leg from its host. Holding the leg, Blake walked up to stand by Mercury's head, turning the dismembered limb upside down so the joint where she severed the mechanical prosthetic was resting over his heart; it had become sharpened to a point when struck by Blake's sword. The faunus continued to stare coldly at her prone foe as she raised the improvised weapon and brought it back down, plunging it into Mercury's chest.

* * *

Yang surveyed the battlefield. Weiss was helping Ruby get to her feet while Blake was standing over a prone body, bloody instrument in hand. Still scanning, she saw Jaune and Neptune were still carrying wounded soldiers to safety while the rest of JNPR was driving back another wave of White Fang reinforcements. Her focus landed on the last pair dueling in the middle of the courtyard. Pyrrha and Cinder, as Emerald had called her earlier, were still exchanging blows.

Pyrrha looked physically exhausted, and overextended herself on her next strike, allowing Cinder's parry to knock her sword from her grip. Taking advantage of her superior position, Cinder reached past the gladiator's shield with her right hand, grabbing Pyrrha by the throat. When their bodies connected, a wave of energy emitted from the two of them, rolling over the battlefield. Yang flinched and closed her eyes, trying to brace herself for the impact that never came. Opening her eyes she saw a figure in front of her. Standing, sword drawn, facing the conflicting maidens and clad in red and black garb with a plume of black feathered hair sticking out from underneath a stylized Grimm mask.

"Raven." Yang gasped out.

The figure looked briefly at Yang while sheathing her sword. Turning back towards Cinder she spun the dust chamber on her sword.

"Raven!" Cinder exclaimed angrily. It was obvious that Cinder knew and feared the swordswoman.

Pyrrha's head tilted to the side at the sound of Cinder's voice, making eye contact with Raven. Pyrrha smiled very briefly before her eyes slowly closed. Yang heard energy building beneath her, looking down she saw and angry eye of red energy forming.

"Watch out!" She tried to yell to the masked woman as she dove to the side.

Raven failed to react fast enough and was caught in the blast, falling to the ground as her mask was knocked off of her face. Yang struggled back to her feet, her aura nearly depleted from the explosion she tried to avoid, and looked around the battlefield again, at the devastation that Cinder had caused. Everyone Yang cared about was scorched, prone, and hopefully only unconscious. Only one of her allies still stood, clad in a white sheen of light. Yang felt her anger begin to rise in her, her eyes started glowing red and her hair caught fire.

"Jaune, grab Pyrrha."

The boy darted for his former partner, latching on to the girl and coating her with his protective semblance and ripping her out of the grip of Cinder.

"You foolish child." Cinder shrieked at him, raising her hand and summoning energy at which to lash out with.

Yang was past her limit, her anger towards Cinder had pushed her past any point she had ever known in her life. She remembered the power her dad had unleashed on the battlefield earlier, and that same power ran in her blood too. The blonde charged the older woman, eyes shining like those of a demon and her hair brighter than the sun; as she ran the geyser fire around her hair swirled into the shape of a dragon's tail, the air in front of her formed into the visage of one the legendary beasts. The angry brawler tackled her foe to the ground closing the flaming jaws of the dragon around the other woman. The energy Cinder had built up to strike Jaune hit Yang instead, but it was too late for the woman, her fate was now sealed. Straddling her target, Yang started a barrage of strikes on her opponent, each accompanied by a flaming claw, the energy breaking her gauntlets a little more with each strike until they shattered.

"This is where I break you. This is where you pay." Yang growled at her prey.

"My fall won't be caused by you." The woman made eye contact, holding her smug smile and deflecting all of the strikes with her magic barrier.

Incensed at her words Yang pushed even farther, producing more and more fire, using the last little bit of her aura to channel the energy away from her fallen friends and towards the woman who had made their lives a living hell.

"Any last words?" Cinder sneered.

"Yeah," Yang retorted focusing her energy into one hand, punching through Cinder's protective barrier and grabbing her by the throat, scorching her skin. Yang brought her other arm back preparing to finally wipe that self-satisfied look out of existence.

"Nailed it." Yang brought her fist down.

The energy from the last strike rebounded off the ground and back into her own body. She felt the fire start to consume her; hair, clothes, body, she ignored it and reflected on those dearest to her.

Yang thought about her step-mom first, the woman who had raised her. Raven may have given birth her but she always considered Summer to be her real mother. She wished Summer could see this day. The day she fulfilled her promise on last time. She had given her all to protect Ruby, and the brunette would be safe once again. Her thoughts moved to her father, the man who raised her and taught her everything she knew. Her mind progressed onto her teammates. Weiss, the girl who became a second sister to her, and Blake, the faunus whom she adored so much. Her final thoughts were of Ruby once again, her dear little sister, her favorite person in the world.

Yang accepted her fate, holding the image of the red-cloaked girl in her head.

 _ _I burn,_ so you don't have to._

The fire completed its job and consumed the area. All that was left was a depression in the ground where the flames had burned so hot it fused the stonework into one solid, glassy plane.

* * *

 **I will be in my bedroom crying with my Yang beanie on.  
(Not really. Zelindsay called me a troll again though, that may make me cry.)**

 **This also marks the halfway point of my story.**

 **See you Friday for Chapter 10: Hug of Entrapment**


	10. Chapter 10: Hug of Entrapment

**Author's Note: I can't bring myself to watch the season finale again. Still grumpy at Blake.**

 **This entry is a little shorter, I hope to make that up with a one-shot coming out this Sunday.**

* * *

 _Present Day_

Ruby woke up the follow morning feeling a little better, both physically and emotionally. The sun had already risen and its rays were already streaming through the branches. There was a slight droning sound that filled the air. Looking around to find her teammates, she saw them standing in the clearing they had camped near. All three of them were waving their arms at something above them. She slowly stood up and walked over to join them, looking up she saw a Bullhead circling above. The silver eyed girl turned to her teammates to inquire to the situation.

"Why are you waving the ship down? Do we know who is on it?"

"No." Penny stated matter of factly, "We just got a short range data burst on our scrolls saying they were looking for Ruby Rose, and they have news for her."

Ruby desperately weighed her options. She feared that if her deceit was uncovered she could be prevented from completing what she came all this way for. On the other hand, all of Ruby's gear and supplies were still piled by her sleeping bag; there would be no way for her to collect it all fast enough. Before she could make up her mind, Penny turned and hugged Ruby.

"They told us you might run off, and I was instructed to keep you here for your own safety." the redhead whispered into her ear. "Do not worry, I am trying to help you."

"Penny, let me go." Ruby squeaked out as she struggled against Penny's embrace while the transport landed. "You don't know wh..."

Ruby's sentence got cut off as the Bullhead's door opened to reveal two magnificent figures, one in a long white cloak and the other with golden hair that reached her waist. Ruby couldn't speak, all she could do was run to the transport and leap up into the waiting arms of the two women she loved the most.

The aircraft ride was relatively delightful. Ruby was informed by the pilot that they were being taken directly to Patch. The whole trip Ruby sat between Yang and Summer, her arms linked with both of theirs. On the other side of Yang, Blake slept with her head on the blonde's shoulder while Weiss sat on the floor, resting against Yang's legs, with her arms wrapped around the one closest to her. On the opposite of Summer from Ruby, Taiyang sat against Summer, letting her keep her head on his shoulder.

Ruby couldn't imagine what was going through her father's head. Even though he had been reacquainted with his wife for over a week now He had been living in grief for much longer than her. As the Bullhead landed next to her family's house, Taiyang motioned to Weiss and Blake.

"You're welcome to stay with us for the rest of the break if you'd like." Yang explained to the girls as her father lead the way to the house. Looking at each other, both girls smiled and got off the transport.

Between packing the transport, dropping Penny off, switching pilots, and stopping for a few quick breaks, the trip had taken the entire day and most of the night, though it didn't seem to take much time at all. Before she knew it, they were ready to spend their first day back home as a family.

Now that they were unpacked, Ruby happily buzzed around the kitchen helping Summer make a batch of chocolate chip cookies. She could not keep her eyes off of the white-cloaked woman as she explained what had happened. During the fight between Yang and Cinder, Summer had arrived after as Yang was trying to burn her opponent. She managed to dive in and grab Yang, using her maiden powers to pull both of them through a portal linked to a random location. Unfortunately, the energy from Yang's attack had seriously injured both of them, and they spent almost six months recovering from a comatose state in a remote hospital. They had managed to make contact with Taiyang shortly after Ruby and her team fell off the communication grid and have been looking for them ever since.

Ruby felt bad again for everything she had dragged her team into. Not only did it not accomplish anything, but it almost kept her from her goal.

"Don't be sad Little Rose, you did what you thought was right." Summer lifted her daughter's head and handed her a plate. "Take these to you sister, I am sure she is dying to spend time with you."

Ruby complied, but only after a long hug. Taking the plate into the dining room where her teammates were sitting, she placed the plate of cookies in front of Yang and proceeded to seat herself in Yang's lap.

"I think you're getting a little big for this," Yang started to joke, but reconsidered after she saw her sister's face. "but you are welcome to stay as long as you like."

The four girls ate the cookies in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the change of pace from the food they had been eating during their respective searches. After the cookies were gone, the girls sat around conversing about the events of the last few weeks and the trials they had gone through. The sun slowly made its way across the sky and started to go down.

"Go check on mom," Yang said to her little sister, "See if she needs help with dinner."

Ruby turned to walk into the the kitchen only to find it empty with no lights on.

"Summer!" she called out.

"In here." Ruby heard the voice answer from back in the dining room. Confused she turned and went back into the room she had just left. The lights were off in the dining room too and there was no one there.

"Summer? Yang?" She was confused to where they had gone. They had just been there hadn't they?

Ruby continued walking through the unlit house, when she got to the living room she saw Summer and Yang standing conversing quietly to each other. As Ruby approached they turned, now standing side by side and facing her, neither were smiling; it made her feel uncomfortable.

"Where did everyone else go?" the girl inquired.

"Dad went to go get firewood, it's going to be a cold night tonight." Yang responded, a sad look appearing on her face.

"I think your friends decided to go for a quick walk." Summer, also looking sad, answered the rest of her question.

"What is going on?" Ruby asked frantically.

"We just wanted to tell you something"

"What is it?" Ruby felt tears welling up inside of her.

"We're sorry."

"Don't say that! Don't ever say that!" The young girl said as she collapsed to the ground crying..

"We're so sorry" Yang told her anyways.

"It's not fair!" Ruby screamed as she looked up. The house was empty. She was all alone.

"It's not fair!" Ruby screamed herself awake, seeing the trees surrounding her, she couldn't stop screaming.

"It's just not fair!" Breaking down and sobbing, the girl squeezed her eyes shut tight trying to keep the world out and bring her happy dream back. She barely noticed the hands that picked her head up or the soft skirt it was placed on. The comforting voices of her teammates, or the warm hugs they attempted to give her. Her world was dark, she had to finish her mission, only the shadow could bring the light back.

* * *

 **I'm sorry.**

 **See you next week, Chapter 11: Who the hell are you?**


	11. Chapter 11: Who the Hell are you?

**Author's Note: My editors teased me for being boring and not mentioning them. So I told Zelindsay she needs to start streaming Fallout 4. I have never seen someone miss a super mutant 8 times in a row with a 95% hit chance!  
As for XenonRaumzeit, his favorite anime characters are... Ya know. That may be crossing a line.**

 **On a completely unrelated note, this chapter was self-edited, so there may be a few more errors than normal.**

 **Uh, please remember I have no regards for RWBY canon past Season 3, Episode 6.**

* * *

 _Six Months Ago_

"What? Where am I?" Amber heard the other inquire.

' _It doesn't matter right now, this place isn't safe.'_ She responded hastily. The dark bothered her, as well as the lack of knowledge of what was going on around her. ' _Open your eyes_.'

"Oh," The other responded, complying with her request. Amber could now see the aftermath of the battle. The courtyard had a large depression in the middle of it where the ground had been melted and fused together. Amber felt the other tugging at her again.

' _Yes?'_ She inquired.

"I feel like something is missing" Amber's host surveyed the battlefield too. A flood of color flowed through Amber's consciousness; red, white, black, green, pink. A color was missing. What color could it be?

' _Don't worry,'_ Amber started to explain, ' _it's normal for temporary memory loss to occur, my last host also suffered from brief memory problems when she first acquired me.'_

The other started to panic.

' _It's ok,'_ Amber tried to reassure her host and keep her emotions calm. She and her host's emotions could affect each other, and this was not an opportune moment for panic. ' _It isn't safe here though, we need to go.'_

"Right." The other said in agreement. Drawing her sword she made a cut through the air creating a portal in front of her.

' _How did you do that?'_ Amber inquired as her host sheathed her weapon.

"It just seemed natural." The other responded. Kneeling to pick up the mask that lay at her feet, she placed it on her head as she walked through the portal.

* * *

 _Present Day_

Blake woke, realizing that she was still curled up into a ball against Ruby's back, she quickly sat up to a more dignified position. Glancing back at the brunette she saw that Weiss had fallen asleep with Ruby's head still in her lap. The events of the previous nights had been terrible. Ruby incoherently screamed for hours despite all the comfort that she and Weiss had tried to provide the young girl with. The only reason they had made it through the night was because Penny had stood guard against any incursions Grimm had tried to make against them.

Blake stood up and moved to relight their campfire, letting her teammates sleep as long as possible. Once the fire was going, Blake proceeded to prepare food and coffee for her teammates.

After they had left to go hunt the white beowolf they had the chance to enjoy one of Ruby's lesser known abilities, campfire cooking. However, the job of preparing food during the trip quickly fell to Blake as Ruby became too distressed to hold her attention on a single task just a week after they started their search. Originally Blake thought that it would be fair to distribute the duty and split it among her teammates. The faunus unfortunately, and rapidly. found out that Penny had no idea how to cook and Weiss' attempt at preparing food could only be called a crime against the living.

"Salutations Blake." Penny exclaimed in her cheery voice, startling Blake. Somehow she didn't hear the cyborg approach her.

"Hi Penny." Blake replied in a grumpy tone. She wasn't upset with Penny, she just was more of a night person than a morning person, and they were out of tea. "Is everything going alright?"

"Yes, I have not seen any Grimm in our immediate vicinity for two and a half hours now." The redhead responded, initially chipper, but her voice shifted to a more serious tone. "Is Ruby doing ok?"

Blake took a deep breath. For the first time in the past few weeks she took enjoyment out of the task of cooking. It felt like it was the one thing she had control of.

"I don't know, she had a rough night. I was waiting until the coffee was ready until I woke her up. Could you make sure we don't get snuck up on for at least another hour until we can get on with our search?"

"Affirmative."

Penny left to make a round of their camp perimeter, leaving Blake with her thoughts. Thinking back to the conversation she had with Ruby the previous evening. The girl seemed so sure about what she had seen and she was able to convince Ozpin that they should come out here too. Even though some things didn't seem to add up, Blake resolved to continue to show faith in her leader.

It was going to be hard to force the young girl to go back to Beacon early. Even though she was choosing to believe what the brunette was claiming and that the girl was probably out here for the right reasons, the search was tearing her apart. It all sounded a little too familiar to a conversation she once had with Yang. Yang wouldn't let her destroy herself searching for Torchwick and she wasn't going to let Ruby destroy herself now.

Blake's peace and quiet didn't last long before the ding from the coffee pot interrupted her. The faunus sighed as she got up to wake her teammates; not only was she going to have to drink coffee, but neither of her friends had a history of waking easily. Thinking prudently, Blake chose to wake Weiss first, tapping her on the cheek until the girl opened her eyes.

"Could you not do that?" Weiss requested. Thankfully her voice showed less irritation that Blake was expecting to hear.

"Sorry, but the coffee's ready. We need to get Ruby up and I need to finish breakfast." Blake apologized.

"It's fine" Weiss tried to sit up without jarring her teammates head that was still in her lap. Leaning forward Weiss brought her head down next to Ruby's and gently spoke into her ear.

"It's time to get up."

Ruby only responded with a heart wrenching groan.

"Come on Ruby, coffee is ready and breakfast is almost done." The heiress tried again, using one of her hands to softly play with the girl's red and black hair.

"I don't want any." Ruby finally spoke up.

Weiss brought her head away from Ruby and looked to Blake, "A little help please?" She requested.

Blake sighed again, it was too early for this. She walked to the side that Ruby was facing, knelt down, wrapping one arm around the girl's back and the other arm under her leg, Blake picked Ruby up and carried her over to the fire. Weiss followed and placed a blanket on a fallen tree, motioning Blake to set Ruby down there. As Ruby got situated, Weiss collected food and coffee and brought them to her partner. Blake watched her tired friend carefully. The girl quickly drank the coffee down but hesitated with her food until she noticed the faunus watching her.

"You should eat up, we have a long day ahead of us." Blake tried to keep her voice balanced between friendly and forceful. "We don't need you passing out from hunger."

Ruby looked down at her food again and slowly took a small bite. After taking a minute to chew and swallow it she looked back at Blake.

"I am full now." The brunette was trying to smile, but her eyes were open too wide, she was showing too many teeth.

"Mmmhhmm, are you sure you are ok?"

"Of course I am!" Ruby tried to assure them as she brought her hand to her head. Blake silently observed as Ruby grabbed another group of hairs and pulled them out.

"Ruby!" Weiss shrieked at her partner. "You need to stop that."

"Stop what?" Ruby responded in a confused voice.

"You pulled out more of you hair and you aren't eating!" Weiss responded worriedly.

"I'm not hungry!" Ruby insisted on arguing back.

Blake decided this was an opportunity to relieve Penny from her watch and left her arguing teammates.

Poor Weiss, Blake thought, not only putting so much effort into helping someone she loves to just have to watch them continue to self-destruct; but also knowing that person will never love them back in the same way. The snowy-haired girl tried to hide her feelings, but since the Vytal Tournament Blake had noticed a shift in her. The heiress started blushing instead of scolding Ruby for her childish antics and was always finding reasons to be wherever the younger girl was even before Yang's passing. Ruby never responded to any of Weiss' gestures anymore than a friend would. On the other hand, Blake had also never seen Ruby show romantic affection to anyone. Still, even without reciprocation, there Weiss was doing all she could to take care of her teammate.

After the girls had finished arguing and Weiss finally convinced Ruby to eat, they set about packing up supplies from their camp.

"Since this is the clearing that the beowolf hangs out around, we could probably leave most of our stuff here," Weiss started explaining, "And use this area as a basecamp."

"Nah." Ruby replied, shouldering her large travel pack.

"You'll just wear yourself out carrying that all day." Weiss continued trying to convince her teammate.

"If we leave our stuff here something could happen to it." Ruby was quick to respond. It worried Blake, had Ruby heard what they were talking about last night?

"Nothing is going to happen." Penny tried to sound dismissive, but hiccuped as she finished speaking, clapping her hands to her mouth.

Ruby looked at the android suspiciously.

"Seriously you dolt, how can you fight while wearing that bag?" The frustration in Weiss' voice was starting to increase. "If you are worried about the safety of your things then you shouldn't bring them into combat with you."

Blake saw the look of defeat take over Ruby's face. The silver-eyed girl had definitely heard what her teammates had planned and was probably still too emotionally drained to keep arguing. Blake's heart broke a little more while she desperately tried to remind herself that she was doing this for Ruby's sake.

"Fine." She replied, dropping her bag, and heading out into the forest. Weiss shrugged at Blake and Penny before the three of them set out to follow their team leader.

* * *

 **My girl scout cookies were delivered, so yeah. Sorry I got nothing.**

 **See you all on Friday for Chapter 12: Empty Hands, Empty Soul**


	12. Chapter 12: Empty Hands, Empty Soul

**Author's Note: Short chapter today. Tax season is taking a good toll on me and my friend was in the hospital last night. I didn't get this done until 2am this morning. Zelindsay kindly pushed aside some school work to edit for me.**

* * *

Six Month Ago - Ruby

Ruby realized her hands we empty. Why was it so important that they should not be empty? The last thing she remembered was being on the battlefield and tackling Emerald. Weiss was helping her when she saw the explosion, she had been holding onto to her as they got thrown to the ground again.

"Weiss." Ruby croaked, attempting to sit up and call out; her body hurt all over.

"Easy now," She heard her uncle's voice. "The ice queen is fine. You were all burned pretty badly though. Recovery is going to take a while."

Ruby laid back in the hospital bed trying to breath deeply. She tried to recollect what she had gone through. She was charging at Mercury with Blake when something knocked her over. The next thing she knew she was lunging at a faunus man trying to grab a terrified Blake. The sickening sound of one of her glass blades driving through flesh; it made her queasy.

"Unfortunately, I have bad news." Qrow continued. "I didn't want to be the one to tell you this, but Taiyang requested that I be the one to do it."

Her memory was racing back. Fighting the faunus man and stomping on him when he was knocked over. Ruby despised how brutal this war had made her.

Ruby felt her heart drop as she heard her uncle choke back sobs.

"What? What is it?" she inquired nervously.

She came back to the scene where she leapt across the battlefield and tackled the punk with green hair. A shot went off, the girl was missing her hand now. Weiss was running over to help her up and the explosion that followed. Yang's voice shouting, full of anger. She looked over towards her sister but all she saw was flame.

"Yang didn't make it."

Ruby's world shattered. She couldn't breath. This had to be a dream, her uncle had to be wrong, her sister promised she would always be there for her.

No, she was wide awake. Wide awake and trapped in a nightmare for the rest of her life.

Ruby was discharged from the hospital after a week. During her time there she had many visitors, but cared most when Jaune had come to talk to her. He was the last one to see her sister alive. He explained what had happened, how Cinder created the explosion that had incapacitated everyone and launched another attack at Yang that hit her and the woman next to her. How Yang had ordered Jaune to save Pyrrha, and how she sacrificed herself by tackling Cinder and taking a blow that was meant to kill Pyrrha and Jaune. The blazing maelstrom that Yang had created to ensure the defeat of Cinder. Jaune felt guilty, he had left before the conflict had been finished, he was only concerned with saving Pyrrha. Ruby wanted to be angry with him but she was still numb. She couldn't feel any emotions; no anger or sadness, no guilt or grief.

Ruby solemnly dragged herself out to the courtyard to see where the battle had taken place. She saw the monument in the middle, her sister's name was now engraved in big letters in the middle. Writing ran down the sides detailing the lives that were lost and there was an inscription at the base with some worthless quote about sacrifice for the greater good. Yang's funeral had too much fanfare, too many people were there; a hero's death. She was dead now, it didn't matter what accords were granted to her, it wouldn't change anything. Ruby sighed helplessly. There had been nothing left of her sister for the funeral, just the scorched earth. Like Yang, they had never found the body of Cinder either, the flames had devoured her as well and it came as small solace for Ruby.

Ruby recounted the fate of the other combatants that fought that day, there was more than enough pain to go around as numerous soldiers on both sides had died. Sun had been pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, but Sage and Scarlet had managed to recover from their wounds. They, along with Neptune, were keeping Blake company while she dealt with her loss. Mercury had also made it to the hospital, but he had died shortly afterwards due to the unusual puncture wound in his chest. Emerald had died before getting to the hospital; Weiss' attack had depleted her aura, and she took the full brunt of Cinder's explosion. The body of Adam and Torchwick's henchwoman were never recovered either. Adam had likely escaped, but it sounded like Torchwick's accomplice got caught in the same secondary explosion as Yang. Jaune, Nora, Penny, and Ren managed to survive the battle with minimal injuries, though Pyrrha had been pronounced dead on arrival when they first examined her at the hospital, but upon closer examination the doctors were able to resuscitate Pyrrha and placed her in a medically induced coma; they were certain she would make a recovery.

 _This isn't fair,_ Ruby thought to herself as her emotions returned to her in a torrential flood, _why do they get Pyrrha back but I don't get my sister back?_

"How is this fair?" Ruby shouted at the monument, dropping down to her knees in front of it. "You promised to be that you would always be there for me!"

"Ruby!" She heard Weiss' voice behind her and footsteps quickly approaching.

"You swore to me that you would stay with me, then you left me all alone in this horrible world!" As she kept screaming at the statue, she felt hands on her shoulders. She angrily pushed her teammates hands off of her. The anger was overwhelming and unbearable. "I can't take this! I can't do this! You lied to me!"

Ruby slammed her hands down on the ground in front of her, ignoring the waves of pain that traveled up her arms as she cried for the first time since she learned about her sister's fate.

She felt her partner's hands again on her back, the warmth of her body next to her.

"I took her for granted Weiss. I always assumed she would be right there for me." Ruby struggled through her tears, she had no strength left in her voice. "Now she is gone. Every bit of joy in my life is gone now, everything is so empty."

"I am so sorry Ruby." Weiss responded.

Ruby looked up at the statue again, at the name of sister displayed so honorably. Ruby stood up out of Weiss' grip and created a blade from one her gauntlets. Being careful to detach the blade so it didn't break or cut her, Ruby walked up and started scratching the area right under the hero's name. When she had completed her task, she took a step back.

"It's better now." the brunette said to her friend.

The statue now read 'Yang Xiao Long - The brightest light we have ever known.'

* * *

 **Amber will be back again, I hope you like the direction I take her in!**

 **Have a great weekend and see you all on Tuesday for Chapter 13: The White Beast Appears**


	13. Chapter 13: The White Beast Appears

**Author's Note: Finally back on track with proper release times.**

 **Amber is back, I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

 _Present Day_

Ruby began to lose hope as the day wore on. After traveling through the dense forest for hours, they had seen no sign of the white beowolf they sought and she knew this would be her only chance to find it. As they came across a road in the forest she was reminded that her teammates were going to make her go home tomorrow and there wasn't anything she could do about it. Ruby felt a tickling sensation in her hand, looking down she saw that she had almost a dozen strands of hair in her hand.

 _Maybe I am going crazy,_ the brunette thought to herself, _maybe I imagined the whole thing. Did I bring my teammates here, to deal with this dangerous situation, because of my imagination?_

She felt another wave of nausea building.

"I think I need to sit down," Ruby called out to her teammates.

She saw the three of them turn around as she sat on the ground in the middle of the roadway.

"Is something wrong?" Weiss inquired looking concerned again.

"No, I'm just a little tired." Ruby lied to her teammate again. The battle raging in her head wouldn't allow her to keep going. She was starting to doubt herself even more, the thought that she could be wrong was almost too much. On top of that she hadn't successfully eaten in almost a week and a half now. Little bites of food were fine, they would stay down, but Ruby had to force herself to eat; she simply was never hungry. When her teammates were watching her she would force down everything they gave her, but she hated it, her body would just throw it back up. She could feel her physical strength slowly fading, but couldn't do anything about it.

"I think..." Ruby started slowly, her mind plagued with doubt. "I think it's time to go home."

Her teammates stared at her in silence, shocked at what they heard.

"Are you sure?" Penny inquired softly, "We haven't found the beowolf yet."

"I can't do this." Ruby finally admitted, "I have no strength, no energy, I will only put you in harm's way."

Penny looked between Blake and Weiss, they all seemed to exude the sense of agreement.

"Let us bring you back to the camp for now." Penny said with resolution as she reached down to help Ruby back to her feet.

Ruby finally stood all the way up when she heard the awful sound. A bellowing roar came through the forest followed by the sound of trees cracking and breaking. Out of the dense foliage leapt a giant white beowolf. The beast came down with tremendous force landing on Blake and Weiss, knocking them flat. Behind the pale monster, half a dozen more beowolves appeared out of the the trees.

"Stay behind me Ruby." Penny commanded forcefully, letting go of Ruby and ejecting over a dozen swords from her back.

Ruby gasped and fell over when Penny let her go. Her physical fatigue combined with the shocking appearance of the beast made her legs too shaky to support her. From the ground she watched as Penny's swords unfolded and started to spin in a circle in front of the redhead. A beam of wind dust emitted from the middle of the swords, knocking the giant beowolf backwards. Charging forward Penny sent her sword lancing towards the smaller Grimm, rapidly slaying all within reach. Ruby frantically looked at her scroll. Weiss and Blake were still alive, but unconscious. Ruby started to crawl towards her teammates when she heard Penny cry out. Looking up she saw Penny's swords had cut numerous wounds in the pale creature, but it still fought back. Leaping at the young robot, it swiped at its target, and to Ruby's surprise, the creature's paw batted away the swords encircling the girl. The next swipe caught Penny by the waist, sending her sailing into a tree.

Pausing for a moment, the beast turned towards its last conscious prey. As it prowled towards Ruby she reached back and grabbed her scythe. Extending it, she fired several rounds at the encroaching creature; all of them ricocheted off the Grimm's natural armor. As the giant animal got within a few meters of Ruby, she dropped her gun. It was futile, she didn't have the energy to fight it or protect her teammates. Leaning forward she used her body to shield her teammates.

"I'm so sorry." She confessed to them as tears streamed down her face.

The white Grimm standing above her thundered in triumph. Its roar was cut short by a thunderclap and the crackle of electricity, followed by the squelch of a blade sinking into flesh. Ruby laid over her friends, quaking in the silence until she heard the sounds of footsteps approaching. They soon fell silent and she felt the warmth of someone kneeling next to her.

 _Is this it? Is this the moment I have been looking forward to?_ Ruby thought eagerly to herself.

Ruby looked up with renewed vigor to come face to face with a Grimm mask. The owner's red eyes visible through the slits in the mask and a large plume of black feathered hair jutted out of the back.

"Not you!" Ruby wailed in despair at the masked woman. "It isn't supposed to be you!"

The woman stood up and straightened the black and red wrap she wore. She slowly backed away a few steps before turning and walking off. It didn't matter to Ruby where she was going as long as she left. Ruby buried her face in her hands. She had been wrong, her search was in vain, her mother wasn't coming for her. Her life was not a nightmare anymore, it had become a living hell.

* * *

 _Six Months Ago_

They stepped out of the portal into an empty, unlit house.

" _Where are we?"_ Amber inquired to her host.

"I do not know." The other answered back. "But this place feels safe… and familiar."

" _If that is the case you need to rest, you are injured and covered in burns."_ Amber's host looked down and inspected the burn marks on her arms. " _Plus, if you are anything like my last host, this mental joining is very taxing at first."_

"I suppose that you are right," The other responded. "Though, I need to know what happened, who are you and why I cannot remember anything."

The woman started to walk through the house, Amber felt she was looking for something. The thought of the missing color came back, which color though? Her host stopped in front of a door with a flaming heart carved into it. The sense of familiarity surged through her host as Amber tried to make sense of everything.

" _Did you know someone who lived here?"_ Amber asked patiently. She knew that trying to push her host on memories would most likely just lead to frustration; she did not want to repeat what happened with her last host, Pyrrha.

"I do not remember, it is possible I lived in this house at one point in time." Her host walked into the room, and laid on the bed. "I may as well get rest now. You can tell me what I need to know tomorrow."

Amber entertained herself with her own thoughts. This was the issue about having your consciousness stuck in someone else's body. You only have your host's senses for input from the physical world and you can't control anything. The only thing Amber still had power over was her aura, though she could only use it to sense certain things and protect her host. Amber tried to be at peace with herself as her host fell asleep, and promised she would not be as bitter as she was last time.

Amber woke before her host. Though she could not see anything she knew they were still alone. She only felt the aura of small animals nearby and the fact that she could still hear birds chirping outside the window meant that none of the nearby animals were predators. Now came the dilemma, to lay here in darkness or try to wake her host.

"You make a lot of noise, you know that?" Her hosts thoughts ran through her consciousness.

" _I didn't realize you were awake."_ Amber countered back.

"I was not. Not when you started your ruckus at least." Her host retorted.

" _Do you feel better?"_

"Yes." The response was simple. The host inspected her arms again. "My burns seem to be mostly healed already."

" _I am not surprised."_ The former fall maiden replied. " _Between both of our auras, your newly aquired fall maiden powers, and your… magic that you already possess, you should heal quickly."_

"Magic I already possess?" The host was confused. At least she knows enough for this to be seen as unusual, Amber thought to herself.

" _Yes, magic that you already had."_ Amber started to explain, " _It has given me a good idea who you are, though I was always told no one could hold two different maidens powers at the same time. Though technically, the fall maiden powers are still attached to my aura, not yours."_

"Who would that be?" the other asked curiously.

" _Why don't we start with anything you remember, any friends or family?"_

Several thoughts and images flowed over Amber, there were a only a few distinct ones; a bright dragon, a large black bird, and a beautiful rose.

"That is all I have." The host stated.

" _Hmm… We will have to work that out later. Let's start with who I am."_ Amber tried to sound friendly and upbeat. " _I am, or was, the fall maiden. My name is Amber and less than two years ago a woman named Cinder attacked me with some of her cohorts and attempted to steal my powers. They partially succeeded, but were interrupted and I was kept alive medically using Atlas technology. See maiden powers pass to another upon death, usually to the last person the maiden thinks of, and those charged with protecting me could not risk the rest of my powers going to Cinder. To fight this woman, my aura and remaining power were transferred into a young woman named Pyrrha. What they did not expect though was my consciousness attaching to my powers and aura. Pyrrha's memories were repressed until her mind could deal with having two people share it; it only took her a few months but she also had help from her colleagues. When she fought Cinder, Pyrrha's last thoughts were of a woman named Raven. I have never met Raven before but I have heard a lot about her, and heard that she was the summer maiden."_

"This is the woman you believe me to be then?" The other asked, sounding surprised.

" _Yes, the mask and the portals confirm it. All maidens are supposed to be able to make them, but I had only heard of a few maidens in history being successful with the skill. From what I have been told, Raven was exceptional with them."_

"Hmmm…."

" _You don't seem too convinced"_

"It is just that I desire to have my memories before I make any conclusions." Her host spoke with resolve. "Hmmmm…."

" _I feel it too."_ Amber said in agreeance, a hunger was growing.

"What is it? I feel empty."

" _No one knows for sure, but all maidens throughout history have reported a hunger that comes with the inheritance of power. Some of the more extreme theories claim that while Man was born from Dust, the Grimm come from Magic."_

"And this twinge I feel, it seems to pull at me."

" _Twinge?"_

Amber's host drew her sword, cutting through the air she created another portal. "Let's see where it goes."

They stepped through the portal and out into a hospital. Looking around Amber realized they were not alone. In the hospital bed lay a young girl with black and red hair; she faintly remembered seeing this girl during the last battle, she was one of Pyrrha's comrades. Near the foot of the bed a muscular blonde man had his head resting on the the brunette's legs. He had flowing blond hair with a single tuft that refused to lay flat, and wore an earth toned outfit with boots, cargo shorts, a buttoned vest and a single spaulder on his right arm. It was their luck that there was no orderly in attendance and both occupants were sleeping.

Yellow! The thought flowed through Amber's consciousness. No, this man was yellow but not the right one.

The red girl started to stir.

" _We should go."_ Amber told her host.

"Yes." The other agreed. She drew her sword again and stepped through the portal.

* * *

 **I am not normally one to ask for things. But, I could use some reviews or PMs. I am a new writer and seeking to improve my skills. So if you could drop me a message on what you liked or disliked. What I could improve on. Really anything that provides criticism that showed you rubbed a few brain cells together to produce is fine by me.**

 **I will see you all on Friday for Chapter 14: T'was Only a Dream**


	14. Chapter 14: T'was Only a Dream

**Author's Note: Happy Friday all! You almost had to read through a self edited chapter but Zelindsay decided to put aside claptrap to help me. How generous right?**

 **Apparently I have been out of the real world too long. Grimm Eclipse is getting a big update soon. I don't know where I will find the time to check that out.**

 **Well, this chapter is... short. But it's the last short one. Promise.**

* * *

 _Present_

Weiss sat up, her body shrieking in pain. The last thing remembered was a howl echoing through the woods and something slamming into her. Panicked, she lept to her feet drawing Myrtenaster and preparing to defend herself against Grimm. It was quiet though. Weiss started to scan the area around her and saw the body of a giant white beowolf slowly evaporating alongside several smaller regular beowolves.

As Weiss continued to observe her immediate surroundings, she pulled out her scroll, checking on the status of her teammates. They were all alive, now she just needed to find them. A splotch of orange caught her eye. Penny was sitting at the base of a tree that had been broken in half. The heiress started to walk to the incapacitated android and tripped over something at her feet instead.

Blake groaned as Weiss crashed over her prone body. Catching herself before she fell, Weiss turned around to check on her faunus teammate. Before she could even begin to worry about the onyx-haired girl she saw yet another motionless body next to her.

"Ruby!" Weiss exclaimed, leaping over the semi-conscious faunus and kneeling down next to her partner.

The red-cloaked girl wasn't unconscious. As far as Weiss could tell she was completely uninjured and fully awake, but she did not respond to any stimuli.

"Ruby! Hey, look at me." Weiss waved her hand over her friend's face. Ruby eyes were wide open and she was staring at the sky blankly.

"Blake, help me." Weiss frantically called to her teammate.

Blake groaned and rolled over, crawling on all fours to Weiss and Ruby.

"Ruby, can you hear me?" Blake shook Ruby slightly by the shoulders. "Weiss, we need to get her to a hospital, I think she is in shock."

Weiss froze, the nearest hospital was several hours away from here by foot, though longer carrying someone. It didn't matter, they had to get the brunette medical care. The snow-haired girl put her arms underneath the girl's back and legs and attempted to pick her up. Groaning, Weiss managed to pick her leader up off the ground, but she wasn't going to be able to carry her for long. She started to walk in the direction of the nearest town, taking short staggered steps. As she slowly walked she heard a slight squeaking behind her.

"Let me take her, Weiss." Penny's voice sounded out.

"Thank you." Weiss responded, handing the limp body of her leader to the redhead.

Walking back to Blake, she helped support the injured faunus, looping the taller girl's arm over her shoulders, and followed behind the android carrying her best friend. As she supported her cat-eared teammate, all she could focus on was the shocked silver eyes of her leader staring out into the distance.

* * *

 _Two Months Ago_

They walked on the edge of the forest near Beacon. Her host was worried about someone seeing her, but it was near the end of the school year and the students would be studying for their final exams rather than patrolling the nearby tree-line. Amber managed to persuade her host to take a break and she had chosen to return to this place. Amber didn't understand why the forest was a place of comfort for her host, but the peace it brought to her emotions was worthwhile. It had been almost five months and the memories still hadn't returned.

The other took the chance to take her mask off, also untying and removing the red and black wrap she wore so she could feel the sun against her skin while she sat against a tree. It was a rare day indeed. Her host was wearing her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail with only a few strands falling in her face instead of down and flowing, and the sunlight reflected off her pale skin and the white blanket she laid on.

" _I had a dream last night._ " Amber started.

"Oh?" The other responded.

" _I was walking through a field of flowers. It was kind of nice actually, I have not walked on my own in a while so it was enjoyable._ " There was bitterness in her, she tried to prevent it from bleeding over to her host. " _I heard a bird calling, so I walked in the direction it was coming from. After a few minutes I saw a large black bird sitting on a large rock. As I approached the rock the bird left, and in its place was a beautiful rose. Like the bird, as I approached the rose, it started to wither and a gust of wind blew the petals away. Once the last petal had been scattered into the wind, the sun started to darken, but when I looked to the sky I noticed that it was not the sun that illuminated the field, but a bright dragon. It only took a few moments and the dragon faded completely to black, extinguishing all the light on the field._ "

"Hmmm…" The other replied. "I had a similar dream. Except that in my dream, as I approached the rock, the bird stood to the side. I as looked at the rose, the dragon above me started to fade. After all the light was gone it got cold and I was left with the feeling that the rose withered too, though I never saw it."

" _Any idea what it means?_ "

"No." The other seemed dejected.

" _But those were the images from your memory._ " Amber tried to cheer her host up.

"I know."

Amber cast her thoughts out trying to think of a way to improve the mood. Her host closed her eyes and focused on the sun warming her body; Amber decided to enjoy the sensation while it lasted. In the distance she heard voices murmuring.

" _Did you hear that?_ " Amber asked her host.

"Yes." The other opened her eyes, now alert to her surroundings.

As Amber's host reached towards her gear, Amber saw a figure appear on the top of a nearby cliff; it was the girl in red that they had seen in the hospital.

" _She sees us._ " She warned as the girl on the cliff made eye contact with her host.

Her host stood up and quickly created a portal while she grabbed her gear and stepped through to the room in the inn they had been staying at.

" _Why do you not want people to see you?_ " Amber asked her host.

All she felt was sadness from her host. The other put her black and red wrap back on. Underneath the wrap she still wore the charred clothes she was wearing that were burned from the battle at Beacon. Her host had acquired a lot of clothes now, accumulated purchases affordable from months of plundering various White Fang bases, but still chose to wear the clothing from the day she lost her memory, no matter how charred and discolored they were; at least she washed them.

"Until I get my memory back, I do not wish to interact with anyone who may know me."

* * *

 **Man, I looked at the calendar and realized that our happy ending is coming up on us soon. I... just... need... to... write... it...**

 **See you all Tuesday for Chapter 15: Icey Lullaby**

 **I was told that I name my chapter anime style, that isn't true is it?**


	15. Chapter 15: Icy Lullaby

**Author's Note: Happy Tuesday!**

 **I think that is it. Uh, last week I said something about my editor and Claptrap. I don't know what that is about. She is being smart with computers and getting a computer science degree. Not with Claptraps. So I'll blame my other editor for sneaking that in, though I can't be too mean. Xenonraumzeit stepped up and made sure you didn't have to read through a self-edited chapter. Normally Xenon just edits my short stories for me.**

* * *

 _Present_

It took them almost five hours, but they had managed to get to a small village on the other end of the forest than they entered from.. The town did not have a hospital of its own, but they had open lodging in the tavern and the town doctor had stopped by for a visit shortly after they arrived. Weiss and Penny were the luckiest. The heiress had only been knocked unconscious and suffered only scrapes and bruises, while the robot had bounced back as perky as ever with no discernible damage.

Blake winced as she made her back to the tavern from the town library. She had gone to the public library to use the town's only CCT terminal and send a message back to Beacon so they could be picked up. A pain shot down the faunus' side as she reached to open the door to their temporary lodgings.

When the white beowolf landed on her it had cracked a few of her ribs and gave her a concussion. The doctor had bound her chest and told her to take it easy for a few days, but she couldn't sit still if it risked the well being of her teammates. Penny had gone to the nearby store to obtain supplies, and Weiss stayed with Ruby; this left the job of making contact with their headmaster hers.

Blake walked into their rented room. After hearing that their team had defeated the white beowolf the townsfolk had offered up the two room suite in the tavern for them to stay in until they left back for their school. There was no one in the living area, so the faunus proceeded into the back doorway and into the bedroom. She saw Weiss sitting on the corner of the bed tending to Ruby. The doctor was gone and Penny hadn't returned yet,

"I got a hold of Goodwitch." Blake stated in a quiet voice, careful not to startle her teammates. "She said they were going to send the next available transport to pick us up. It should be here the morning after tomorrow."

Weiss simply nodded, keeping her gaze on her partner. Blake glanced down at the brunette, her silver eyes still open in shock and staring at the ceiling.

"Is Ruby doing ok?"

Weiss sighed lightly.

"The doctor said that physically she is fine, no trauma or major wounds. Apparently she is in shock over something. I know she was severely fatigued and stressed before we were attacked by the beowolf, but whatever put her in this state had to have happened after we were knocked unconscious." The snow-haired girl explained and ran her hand down Ruby's cheek, "There is nothing we can do for her right now except make her comfortable until she snaps out of it."

"I should have asked them to send a doctor with the airship." Blake said wistfully, "But the library is now closed and by the time it opens tomorrow the ship will have already left."

Weiss remained quiet. Blake didn't know what was going through her teammate's head, but she knew that they all needed rest. She got up and walked around to the other side of the bed.

"Do you mind?" Blake asked motioning to the empty side of the bed.

"No." The heiress responded back. "You're the injured one, go ahead and take the bed. I can sleep on the floor. It will be fine.

Blake sat down on the bed and leaned forward to remove her shoes. The pain in her ribs flared up and she started to get dizzy. Moving quickly to remove her footwear before she passed out again she half kicked them off and then laid back into the bed. As she straightened out the pain in her ribs was alleviated. Her concussion would be healed by tomorrow, but the fractured bones were going to take longer. She tried to focus her aura on her wounds to speed the healing process.

"Weiss." Blake said evenly, trying to to cause the pain in her ribs to return.

"Yes?" The heiress responded.

"Do you think Ruby can hear us?"

"The doctor said she can."

"You should try singing to her."

"What?" Weiss' voice increased in volume reflecting her surprised tone.

Blake smiled,. It was always fun to elicit embarrassed reactions from her snow-haired teammate, as she didn't always deal with surprises in a poised manner.

"Yang would occasionally sing her lullabies when they were younger and Ruby couldn't sleep." Blake looked over so at her teammate, "And…"

"And what?" Weiss asked back eagerly.

"Ruby mentioned before how much she enjoys to hear you sing." Blake closed her eyes and tried to relax. "To be honest, we all do."

"Oh…" Weiss responded almost too quietly for the faunus to hear it.

The last thing Blake heard before drifting off to sleep was her best friend softly singing a lullaby.

* * *

 _2 Weeks Ago_

Amber felt her host smile as several White Fang soldiers fled from her. Amber knew why she despised the criminal faunus organization. She had seen the damage they inflicted first hand while she was still in Pyrrha's head, but she didn't understand why her host shared the same animosity towards them. Over the past few months the hunger would grow within her host and she would drop whatever she was doing, create a portal, and follow its pull. Every time this happened, they would always step out into a White Fang base and her host would mercilessly raze the base to the ground, only attacking those who stood in her way. The hunger always tugging her host towards an unknown goal; drawing her onward towards an arbitrary destination. Whenever they assaulted the terrorist's bases there was always a presence nearby, always taunting them and inexorably dragging them to specific point in the base, but when they would get close the hunger would disappear and they would be left without direction.

" _We are getting close, do you think we will find it this time?"_ Amber asked her host. " _Or do you think it will disappear again?"_

"We shall see." Her host said, kicking down the door to a large warehouse.

Inside were cages full of Grimm. Her host gave a light growl at the sight of the beasts, Cinder had taught the White Fang how to capture and use the creatures of dark as weapons against their foes; it was despicable. Using her powers, the other slashed her sword downwards, sending fire streaking through the air and burning the caged Grimm to ashes. She started to walk back forward and felt a twinge.

" _What is it? Did it leave?"_ Amber asked.

"No. The hunger is still there... It is something else." the other replied tersely, stopping in her tracks. "Hmmmm…"

The other swung her sword through the air again, creating another portal.

" _Where are we going?"_ Amber inquired, surprised at the other's actions. " _We are not done here."_

"Let us find out."

She stepped through the portal into a field at the base of a hill. On the ground in front of her was the red-cloaked girl, curled up and unconscious. A roar sounded across the field and Amber's host looked up. Standing over the girl was an abnormally large ursa, the spikes on its back were several meters longs; it was an old and very powerful creature.

Amber felt her host's confusion. This was the fourth time they had run into this red-cloaked girl and the second time they had found her unconscious and being attacked by Grimm. The first time they rescued her it was near Beacon, where the girl had spotted them from a distance. She had been by herself and on the ground surrounded by beowolves. Now it was a giant ursa and there were two other girls there with her; black and white.

The other scowled at the ursa. Performing a diagonal slash she froze most of the beast in ice and stepped forward swinging her sword again, pouring her aura into the strike and beheading the beast in a single stroke. Curiosity now took both Amber and her host over. They walked over to the red girl, casting a shadow over her while they knelt down to inspect her. Her physical features were hauntingly familiar.

" _Not to interrupt this moment,"_ Amber started, trying to get the attention of her host. " _but there is a very unusual aura approaching us."_

Amber felt her host stand up and look in the direction of the approaching aura. It was a girl running towards them in a green dress and sporting orange hair with a pink bow. Another person that Amber recognized from the battle at Beacon. The other reacted to Amber's feelings of recognition by quickly turning and creating another portal that took them back to the White Fang base. The hungry presence was still there, and they were going to find it.

* * *

 **Seems like Amber's story is starting to catch up with Ruby.**

 **See you all on Friday! Chapter 16: Silver-Eyed Sparkles**

 **I reread my outline for the next chapter. I needed a whimsical name... For reasons.**


	16. Chapter 16: Silver-Eyed Sparkles

**Author's Note: Hey, it's Friday. That's awfully suspicious.**

 **Anyone get a chance to check out the combat changes to Grimm Eclipse? I think they could do more, but it's step in the right direction.**

* * *

 _Present Day_

Weiss sighed as she awoke and reluctantly sat up. Although her back was a little stiff from having slept on the floor for the last two nights, she didn't have the ability to complain. There was a couch in the living room portion of their accommodations, but she instead chose to sleep on the floor next to Ruby and Blake to make sure she could take care of them if they needed anything in the middle of the night. Blake refused to say anything about the pain she was in, insisting that her ribs felt fine and avoiding requesting assistance as much as possible. Ruby had closed her eyes and slept the first night they were there after Weiss had sung to her for almost an hour, but by the time Weiss had woken up the next morning the girl was staring at the ceiling again.

She felt the pain in her legs as she tried to stand up. Yesterday, Blake had stayed at the tavern and watched over Ruby while she and Penny made the trek back into the forest to retrieve the gear that they had left behind. The trip had taken a considerable portion of the day, and carrying two sets of gear had exhausted her. Penny had been chipper as always and it had started to fray on her patience. Fortunately, they made it back to the tavern in time for dinner and before Weiss got too crabby. The food the tavern chef made for them had been only slightly better than the food Blake had been preparing for them, and it reminded Weiss of her embarrassing attempt to cook during their journey. That night Weiss had tried to get Ruby to eat or drink something, but she was unsuccessful at it until the doctor had returned to help out. After that, Weiss had sung to her teammate again until she fell asleep.

 _Now we have to get Ruby prepared to be picked up and taken back to Beacon._ Weiss thought to herself.

Turning towards the bed, she panicked. Only Blake was still asleep under the covers, Ruby was gone. She frantically dashed to the living area to see that neither Penny nor Ruby were in there. Grabbing her jacket and throwing her boots on, the Heiress ran out of the room and down into the main room of the tavern. It too was empty, but she heard familiar voices coming from the kitchen. Weiss cautiously pushed opened the door to a happy greeting.

"Salutations Weiss!" Penny's loud jubilant voice brutalized her sensitive ears.

"Weiss!" Ruby squeaked out, smiling as she jumped over and gave her a brief hug before returning to her previous task.

Weiss stood there shocked.

"What is going on here?" She inquired, trying not to stammer.

"Ruby is teaching me to cook." Penny offered.

"I wanted to thank you all for you help you gave me the last few weeks." Ruby sounded very apologetic. "So I asked the owner if it was ok if I borrowed the kitchen to make you all breakfast."

The silver-eyed girl smiled. She finally looked happy for the first time in the last six months.

"Penny told me that we are getting picked up soon. So I will finish up here if you two and Blake can pack our stuff up and bring it down." The brunette continued.

Penny walked past Weiss and headed back to the room. When Weiss turned to follow she heard Ruby talk again.

"Hey Weiss." Ruby started and Weiss turned back around to see the girl slightly blushing. "Thanks for singing to me."

Weiss blushed deeply, holding her eye contact with her teammate, trying to think about what to say. Her partner smiled again and returned to preparing food.

It was probably better that I didn't say anything to her, Weiss thought as she left the kitchen to go help the rest of her friends pack.

It took them almost an hour to get everything packed and brought to the main area of the tavern where Ruby was waiting for them with food already spread on the table and a pot of coffee at the edge of the table.

"Here Blake." The brunette said happily as she handed a steaming cup to her teammate. "I had to run down the street going door to door, but I found some tea for you!"

"I… uh... thanks." The faunus stammered back.

They all sat down and Ruby started eating before Blake and Weiss could even dish themselves up. Penny watched them as curiously as she did every time they ate.

"A little hungry?" Weiss asked her team leader. The girl only responded by nodding. "Well, slow down or you'll choke."

Ruby paused for a moment, then started chewing very slowly and dramatically with a pleased look in her eyes.

In the background Weiss could hear the whine of an airships engines start to get closer.

"The airship is here." Penny stated. "You guys finish eating, I will load our affects."

"Thanks, Penny." Weiss said to the girl as she got up before returning her focus to Ruby. The girl's new cheerful attitude was not unwelcome but it was making her slightly uneasy.

"Are you sure you are ok with leaving, Ruby?" the heiress tried to probe, "You didn't complete what you came here for."

"Officially I did, unofficially… well I know I will see my mother again soon." Ruby said seeming more joyful than before. "Plus you three will be happy to be back home. Speaking of which," Ruby patted some of her pockets on her outfit. "It would seem that I forgot something in the room. Finish eating, I'll be back." The girl got up to go back to their room. Halfway there she turned around.

"Oh, and I love you all." she stated before continuing up the stairs and down the hallway.

"That was weird." Blake stated and Weiss saw her turn out of the corner of her eye.

Weiss turned to make eye contact with Blake.

"Indeed. Though there is something about the way that Ruby mentioned her mother." Weiss contemplated, "I just can't put my finger on what it is."

"That reminds me of a conversation I had with Ruby, the night when we got to the clearing while you and Penny were setting up the camp." Blake replied, "We were talking about why we were out here, and I mentioned something about her mother. She gave me a confused look and said it was strange hearing me talk like that. Plus for seeming so happy now, she implied that only the three of us would be happy to be home."

"I never knew we were looking for her mother." Weiss said, still fixated on that detail, ignoring the faunus. There was something about it, something that Ruby had told before.

"Really? She told me and Penny."

"No, every time we talked about this mission Ruby only would use 'she' and 'her'. I thought I knew who Ruby was talking about and I never wanted to press the issue." Weiss contemplated for a moment, there was still something that was bothering her. "Hmmm... Ruby once told me that your mother is the one that raises you, not the one who gives bir..."

The realization hit Weiss immediately and filled her with dread.

"Oh no." Weiss said, "We need to get to her. Now!"

They both leapt up from the table and sprinted up the stairs. When they got to the door to their room, Blake tried to open it.

"Its locked." The faunus stated worriedly, and banged on the door. "Ruby!"

"Stand back" Weiss warned as she started to form a glyph on the door. "Now kick it!"

* * *

 _Two days ago_

Amber was a little disgruntled with her host. She had stayed up late last night after Amber had fallen asleep. This meant that Amber had to spend multiple hours conscious while her host slept through the day. In the past she had gotten good at timing it so they would both be asleep at the same time, but this host was stubborn and often broke routine. Now, sometime in the afternoon, her host was awake. She got dressed in some of her new clothes and put her red and black wrap on over them. They were preparing to go out and enjoy some time in an isolated area for a change. Between incidences with the White Fang and that red girl they hadn't had a chance to relax recently. Her host was fidgeting with her mask now, making sure it was straight and her long feathered mane wasn't getting tangled with her gear.

" _You know that if you used a mirror it would make this a lot easier."_ Amber huffed irritably to her host, " _You're taking forever."_

"No." Her host replied simply.

" _Why not?"_

Her host sighed and she felt irritation and frustration build up in her host.

"It has been six months now. I have not regained my memories yet. You should know how frustrating it is to look in a mirror and see a face that you do not recognize." Her host explained. "Our existence is merely a collection of our memories and I do not need anything else to remind me that, in those terms, I am dead."

" _But you aren't dead. I am here with you."_ Amber argued back, before it occurred to her that she should just stay quiet.

"Physically, yes. But you say I am Raven. I say I am not. I am not Raven because any memories of the actions and experiences that have brought me to this point are gone. Until they return I am an imposter in her body."

" _Fine. But can't we just check to make sure you don't have any dirt on your face or anything?"_

"No."

" _You're impossible sometimes."_

"And you are just a child."

" _I am almost twenty."_ Amber stated indignantly.

"No, as you told me, you spent almost two years in the Atlas cryo bed. You would not have aged, either physically or mentally."

" _You're trying to rile me up aren't you?"_

"Yes." Her host stated. The amusement washed over Amber and she felt her irritation drain away.

She felt the twinge again.

" _Ugh, does this mean are plans for relaxing are cancelled?"_ Amber asked.

"Yes." Her host replied before she created a new portal.

On the other side of the portal was a forest and a angry white beowolf. The beowolf was howling and preparing to strike at something by its feet. Amber's host looked down and she saw that same red girl again. She was on her hands and knees using her body shield two other girls who were lying unconscious on the ground.

 _Again,_ her host thought, _I need to know who this girl is._

The other summoned her power and cast a lightning bolt that struck the creature in its chest. Sprinting forward and drawing her sword, Amber's host cut through the leading arm of the beowolf as it tried to take a swipe at her. Planting her foot she drove the point of her sword through the mouth of the Grimm, as it tried to growl, and up into its head. The beast's body went limp and started to evaporate as she withdrew her sword.

Turning around, the other sheathed her sword and walked up to the red-cloaked girl and knelt down next to her. The girl was still conscious but still did not move. Amber's host kept quiet and braced herself incase the girl would try to attack her. After a few moments the the girl started to look up with a smile on her face. The smiled disappeared the moment they made eye contact and the girl started to scream in horror.

Amber and her host recoiled. This was not the reaction that they had been expecting. They slowly stood up and backed away. It wasn't until the girl had buried her face in her hands that Amber's host created a portal and left.

* * *

 **One more chapter! Then an epilogue... That I am rewriting for the third time? Its getting long.**

 **So next chapter on Tuesday. Chapter 17: Converging Blades**


	17. Chapter 17: Converging Blades

**Author's Note: Last chapter! We are here. I promised a happy ending right? One last minor hurdle.**

 **Enjoy~**

* * *

 _Present Day_

Ruby locked the door behind her as she got into the room that her team had shared in the tavern and prepared for the inevitable. She was sad that she had to leave her teammates behind but she couldn't handle the world anymore; her last bit of hope was gone. The woman in the mask, Raven, had taken it all away. Ruby went into the bedroom, sat down on the bed, and generated a glass blade from one of her bracers. Like at the memorial, she carefully removed the blade from its mounting, ensuring that it would stay sharp and strong enough for its job. Grabbing the blade in both hand, she held the sharp point against her chest and closed her eyes.

Ruby gave herself one last moment to think of those closest to her.

 _Sorry dad,_ she thought, _what I am doing is not fair to you. You already have loved and lost so much, but I am too weak to stay here for you._

 _Sorry Blake. I tried to be a good sister to you, and you were a fantastic sister to me, but I can't go on. You couldn't ever take the place of her and it was unfair to you for me to think you could._

 _Sorry Weiss. You were there for me, but I can't be there for you. I can't keep dragging you down into this cold life I have been living._

Ruby took a deep breath and brought the blade away from chest, she was ready to see those she had lost again.

* * *

Amber felt a twinge again, this time it felt softer and more desperate, less of an urgent cry for help and more like a lonely whisper floating out of the darkness. Her host felt it to, reacting quicker than she had before. There was something about the lack of strength behind the call that gave them a sense of haste. The stepped out of their portal into another room that was similar to the one that they had been staying in. It was obvious they were in a different town, but the interior had the same rundown appearance to it. There was no one around them, just empty chairs and couches, no jackets or shoes to give it the appearance that it was occupied. In the back of the room was an interior door. Amber kept herself aware of her surroundings while her host pushed the door open silently. On the bed in front of the was the red girl sitting with her eyes closed. In her hand she held a red glass blade with the point against her chest. The girl brought the blade away from her chest and before she could plunge it into her body Amber's host moved to try for the girl's wrist to stop her. Before she got there the girl hesitated; dropping the blade and crying into her hands. Amber felt her host kneel in front of the brunette. She didn't know why, but she took one the girl's hand in her own. The girl froze and opened her eyes revealing their silver coloration and staring at her host.

"Why did it have to be you?" The girl asked.

The question made no sense to Amber, who else were they supposed to be?

"I do not know, I am sorry." Her host responded sincerely. "I do not even know who you are, or why I keep running into you."

Tears started to roll down the girl's face as her visage turned from sad to angry.

"You don't even have the heart to talk to me face to face."

Amber's host froze and contemplated for a moment before deciding that revealing her face to this girl wouldn't hurt anything. Using her free hand, she reached up and removed her mask, casting it to the side. The girl, still maintaining eye contact, gasped and tightened her grip on Amber's host's hand.

* * *

Ruby tried to draw the blade back towards hers to finish the deed, but she couldn't. All the pain and misery she felt, the hell her life had turned into because of the loss she suffered, she wouldn't be the one to inflict that on other people. Her resolve strengthened now. She dropped the glass blade and started to cry in the horror of what she almost did to her friends until she felt someone grab her hand. Opening her eyes she saw the same Grimm mask that she encountered two days ago.

"Why did it have to be you?" She managed to whisper out.

Why couldn't this woman leave her alone? She has already caused too much pain.

"I do not know." The woman responded, her voice muffled by the mask. "I am sorry, I do not even know who you are, or why I keep running into you."

Ruby felt anger grow in her.

"You don't even have the heart to talk to me face to face." She growled out.

Ruby watched in anticipation as the woman moved very slowly and deliberately, using her free hand to grab the edge of her mask and remove it, casting it off to the side. To Ruby's surprise the feathered plume of hair came off with the mask as well revealing a tangle of hair, burnt short and dyed black with soot and ash. She was shocked and could only gasp and tighten her grip on the woman's hand. For the first time in six months the brunette dared to feel happy again. Even without the trademark look, Ruby knew who was in front of her, the woman's face shone like the brightest light she had ever seen.

"Yang!" She gasped out almost imperceptibly, diving forward to bury her head in her sister and wrapping her in an erratic hug while she sobbed uncontrollably, "I was right, you're alive."

Ruby felt her sister hug her back, but not in the warm manner she was known for. The brunette pushed herself away.

"Don't you know who I am?" She asked frantically.

"No." The answer started to crush her barely healed soul.

Ruby sat back in despair, feeling like things were about to spiral away from her again. Then she thought of something that could help. Reaching underneath her cloak, she carefully unclasped the necklace she always wore and pulled it out from under her clothes. Ruby carefully wrapped the chain around her hand while she took the necklace off; it was her most prized possession, worth more to her than her cloak and scythe. While the chain was a handmade gift from Summer that she had been given as a child, it was what on the end of the chain that was most important. The attached pendent did not belong to her. She had taken it without permission when she was a child and never told anyone. At that time it was a comfort of always having a reminder of family while Summer was away on missions. A few years after Summer had died on a mission, Ruby had made one more addition to the necklace. She held the necklace up so Yang could see that attached to the end of the chain was a pendant shaped like a burning heart. Tied to the pendant was a lock of golden hair. It was the item she kept with her so she knew that the girl who raised her, the blonde she considered to be her mother, would always be there for her.

Amber's host stared at the necklace the the brunette was holding up in front of her.

' _That is cute.'_ Amber's host thought to her, as a memory came trickling ' _It reminds of a necklace that my little sister had. She stole the amulet one night when I was at a sleepover at a friend's house and my mom was on a mission. I always thought it was cute that she missed me so much, so I never mentioned it.'_ Amber felt happiness from the memory rise in her host. ' _A few years later I fell asleep while reading her a bedtime story and when I woke up I was missing a small section of my hair. For anyone else that would be a death warrant, but I would give anything to make Ruby hap…'_

The other's thoughts trailed off as a flood of memories came rushing through her mind.

"Ruby!" Yang exclaimed and grabbed her little sister; pulling her into a tight bear hug.

At that moment Yang heard a large crash as the door between the living area and the hall was broken down.

"Ruby, don't do it!" Yang heard Weiss voice cry out desperately.

Yang look out the doorway and at the two girls sprinting through the room. They both froze when made eye contact with her as they entered the bedroom. She smiled at them and their hesitation only lasted for a moment.

"Yang!" They both exclaimed as they dove on top of her.

Yang wrapped all three of the girls that she knew had missed her so much into one large hug. After a few minutes Yang shifted so the Weiss and Ruby were bundled into a hug in her right arm. Taking her left arm she placed her hand behind Blake's head, bringing their faces together so their foreheads touched.

"Don't worry, I am not leaving anyone yet." Yang promised to them all.

They all got up to travel down to the airship. Weiss and Blake walked ahead while Yang carried Ruby. The young girl refused to be set down or even let go of Yang for even a second. As they left the tavern they saw Penny standing next to the Bullhead waiting for them, their bags already packed. The jubilant smile that the redhead gave when she saw Yang was so perfect, it may as well have been human.

' _I think this is the first time I have ever flown.'_ Amber confided to Yang, ' _It's kind of cool.'_

' _You get used to it.'_ She replied.

' _So, when are you going to tell them about me?'_ Amber inquired to her host. ' _How are they going to take it?'_

Amber watched as Yang looked side to side. Weiss and Blake were sitting to either side of her with their heads resting on her shoulders and Ruby was sitting on her lap, sleeping with her head just under Yang's chin.

' _Soon.'_ Yang thought confidently. ' _And don't worry, I think they'll be ok with it.'_

* * *

 **And happy ending! Yeah?**

 **I couldn't let Yang actually die.**

 **This Friday we have an epilogue. That is kind of long.**


	18. Epilogue - Everyone's a Light to Someone

**Author's Note: And here it is, the epilogue to my story. I hope it ties everything up in a nice neat bow.**

 **And Guest Reviewer! That was point, I wanted people to think it was Raven, but I tried to leave hints in there on who it actually was.**

* * *

 _Two Weeks Later_

Yang walked back into the dorm where Weiss and Blake were waiting for her.

"It's like having a cute backpack." Yang groaned as she reached back to mess up Ruby's hair.

The girl still only accepted minimal separation from her sister and rode on her back all the from Ozpin's office to the dorm rooms. Yang walked over to Ruby's bed and reached both of her arms behind her sister, lifting the brunette off her back. She then flipped her sister over her shoulder and onto the top bed.

"But…" Ruby started.

"Don't worry Ruby, I am going to stay right here" Yang replied with all the kindness she could bring forth.

The brawler shook her head and ran her hands through her hair. Yang was disappointed by the recent events. Her beautiful golden mane had been ravaged by the fire she generated to kill Cinder. Now barely reaching just past her shoulders when brushed straight, her hair was still a dark sooty color and despite frequent washing there were only sparse patches that were showing hints of their normal blonde.

" _It's fine."_ Amber thought to her. " _Only a few more months and your hair will be blonde again."_

"It's not ok," Yang growled back. "If you look carefully at the roots, I have black streaks growing into my hair, it won't ever be completely blonde again."

Yang heard a small cough and looked over at Weiss and Blake. A small blush was brought to her cheeks as she realized that she had spoken out loud instead of just in her head to Amber.

"There is nothing wrong with black hair is there?" Blake stated with a hint of hurt.

"No!" Yang replied emphatically, trying to save face. "It looks great on you."

Yang winked at her faunus partner. She was going to need to be more discreet when talking to Amber. None of her teammates were going to be able to communicate directly with her and they were going to have to take her word for what was going on. Coming up next was the hardest part of this conversation; this is what she had been putting off for two weeks now.

"But there is something that I do need to talk to you all about." Yang said before anyone else could speak up. "It is kind of complicated and I am going to need your faith that I am not crazy."

"Didn't we already go over this last year?" Ruby offered emphatically, bouncing slightly on her bed, causing to sway slightly. "You told us that you shot a defeated opponent through the leg because you saw him attack you. Even though we saw the opposite with our own eyes, we all still believed you."

"I turned out to be right, more or less." Yang responded indignantly, sounding more frustrated than she actually was.

"That's the point." Weiss interjected, preventing Yang from carrying her response any farther. "We had no reason to believe you but we stuck by your side and not only believed your story, but thought you were still completely sane."

"Uh, I guess you're right." The brawler was taken back by the positivity of her teammates. "I will try to keep this brief then. Remember how Pyrrha told us that Cinder had maiden powers because she forcefully stole them from the previous fall maiden?"

"Yes. Didn't Pyrrha also say that Cinder only got half of them?" Blake inquired while Yang took a breath. "And that Ozpin and Ironwood also gave her the other half of the fall maiden's power."

"But what they didn't tell us was how they gave the maiden powers to Pyrrha." Yang spoke up hastily to prevent Blake from talking any further. She didn't want to lose her train of thought. "The fall maiden's name was Amber. The way Cinder stole her portion of the power was… brutal. She used a sort of glove that she wore on her right hand to drain Amber's ability until Qrow intervened." Yang winced slightly. She had experienced the horrible memory one day when Amber had fallen asleep and her nightmares had overflowed into her consciousness.

"Are you ok?" Yang heard Blake's worried voice. Looking at the faunus Yang saw her beautiful amber eyes open wider than normal and arm outstretched towards her.

"Yes. I am fine, just reliving some memories." Yang's teammates looked confused at her statement. "Atlas had created the technology to be able to move someone's aura to another person."

"What?" Weiss exclaimed. "How can they do that? That is despicable!"

"I know, but that isn't the point." Yang was starting to get exasperated. "Please let me finish." She forced her tone back to normal. Her teammates all looked like they were holding back many questions. "Anyways… there was an unforeseen part of the aura transfer. When they put Amber's aura into Pyrrha, Amber's consciousness got moved with it."

Continuing to observe her teammates, the former blonde could see that they were busy contemplating the what that could mean for Pyrrha.

"What?" Ruby was the first to break the silence, reaching down off the bed to grab Yang's shoulder and monopolize her gaze. "Does that mea…"

Yang held her hand nearest to her sister up to quiet her. It was successful in getting her to stop talking, but Ruby grabbed her hand imprisoning the former blonde in her current location.

"When I fought Cinder and uh… melted the courtyard," Yang said hesitantly. She had gone and seen the courtyard and the monument erected in the middle of it. The damage she had done to the cobblestone, having melted it into a solid shiny surface was beautiful, but that wasn't what had kept her attention. The monument was equally flattering, but the thing that Yang had cared about the most was the small inscription that was scratched under the nameplate that held her name; she would be lying if she tried to claim that she didn't shed any tears. One day, when she was sure that she wouldn't tear up, she would need to thank Ruby for the love and devotion her sister had always shown her.

"Cinder tried to drain the rest of Amber's power from Pyrrha and had apparently succeeded right before Jaune grabbed Pyrrha from Cinder." Yang continued to explain, "My fire ended up burning the glove that had sapped Amber's power and it flowed into me instead. Since Amber's remaining power was still attached to her living aura, her consciousness moved with it and I absorbed that too."

"So..." Ruby tried to speak again, "I mean…"

Yang stared at the brunette while she tried to speak and think at the same time. Weiss and Blake were taking their time trying to piece together the cryptic information the blonde just poured on them. It became quickly obvious that the older girls had figured it out already, but didn't want to risk being wrong.

"So," Yang started slyly, going for the shock value, "Who wants to say hi to Amber first?"

The silence confirmed that her tactic was success.

" _That was tactless, Yang."_ Amber's thought rang through her mind.

"What is with that face?" Blake asked.

Yang realized that her face had changed to a slight scowl after Amber had scolded her.

"You know what they say Blakey." Yang started cheerfully, "Curiosity killed t…"

"You finish that sentence and you're dead, pyro." Blake snapped back, her mouth slightly open showing her teeth and her flattening her ears against her head.

Yang could tell her partner was trying to defuse a tense situation trying to joke back with Yang, but Weiss and Ruby seemed to be more surprised by Blake's reaction; even Amber was a little rattled. In the last two weeks Yang hadn't once seen the faunus girl wear the ribbon that she used to cover her ears. The brawler had always encouraged Blake to be herself and not conceal the ears granted by the girl's faunus heritage; the ears complemented Blake's looks and personality perfectly, and it was always a shame that she kept them covered.

"Don't worry, Amber was just scolding me for my choice of flair when revealing her to you." Yang said with a smile. "So, any questions?"

"First off, hi Amber!" Ruby shouted from her bed, maintaining her position at being the quickest to adapt and accept new situations, "Second, Yang, is that how you survived?"

" _Yes."_ Amber's response was instantaneous. " _I've told you this before."_

"Yeah, I guess. At least that is what Amber tells me. Apparently after I destroyed Cinder's glove and… and my hair." Yang said dismally.

"Anyways, once I acquired Amber she used her maiden abilities to protect me from the energy that rebounded from my attack against Cinder. The force threw me backwards." Yang looked down and started to run her fingers through her singed hair. She was hit by another wave of sadness when her fingers ran out of hair far sooner than she was expecting. Yang struggled to continue without looking at her teammates again, "When I came to my senses, I didn't have any of my memories. I used my weapon to cut open a portal, picked up Raven's mask and left the area."

" _Way to leave me out."_ Amber protested.

" _Shush you, I don't need a child giving me lip."_ Yang thought back.

" _Hey! I am twenty, you're only nineteen."_ the maiden tried to retort, " _I am older than you."_

" _We went over this, you're eighteen."_ the brawler shot back, " _You were frozen for two years."_

" _Technicalities."_ Amber got the final word in before consciousness receded from her host's.

Yang looked up to see her teammates looking at her quizzically again.

"Uh, Raven?" Weiss asked.

"Oh… Raven is my birth mom." Yang started back hesitantly. She felt Ruby's hand clamp down on her own. Yang turned to look the girl in her silver eyes. "Sorry Weiss, I forgot that you're the only one I didn't tell.. Another woman on dad's team, Qrow's sister Raven, gave birth to me. She left shortly after I was born." Yang saw the same pain in her little sister's eyes that she saw when she first told Ruby the truth about Raven and made sure to address the younger girl. "I consider Summer to be my real mom though since she was the one who raised me. So we still have the same mom."

Yang heard Ruby murmur something.

"What was that Rubes?" Yang inquired, she wanted to make sure she heard her little sister properly.

"We don't have the same mother." Ruby repeated quietly, her face started to turn red.

Yang stared at the brunette in shock, "What do you mean?"

Ruby looked back and forth between Yang, Weiss, and Blake worriedly a few times before seemingly making up her mind. She reached under her cloak again and pulled out the necklace she had concealed. Yang looked at the metallic burning heart pendant that had a lock of her previously blonde hair attached to it.

"I have always liked that necklace, Rubes." Yang stated in a jubilant manner.

"What!?" Ruby exclaimed. "How did you… I thought I…" The girl continued to sputter random nonsense at an increasing volume and pitch.

"Calm down, it's flattering." Yang said trying to get the brunette to take a very needed breath of air. "I noticed it the moment I woke up one day with less hair than I fell asleep with."

"You noticed that little bit of hair missing?" Weiss inquired dumbfoundedly.

"Yup." Yang replied making sure to accent the 'p' at the end of the word.

"How?" Weiss started to ask then thought better of it. "Nevermind, so you don't know either?" Seeing Yang shake her head, the heiress focused her ice blue eyes on her partner. "Was I the only one you told?" The brunette nodded in response, her face getting even more flush.

"Soo…" Yang drawled out. "Ya gonna to tell me what this is about?"

Ruby merely buried her head in her blankets so her face could not be seen anymore. Yang turned her head to face Weiss again.

"A little help, Ice Queen?" Yang tried to get information from the heiress.

" _Classy."_ Amber chose this moment to return to the conversation.

" _Shut it, kid."_ Yang snapped back a little too harshly, overstepping what could be considered as joking.

Amber chose not to respond but Yang could still feel her consciousness lingering.

"Hmph." Weiss crossed her arms and spun to face away from Yang, refusing to give any information.

"Fine, Weissicle." Yang tried to get the the snow-haired girl to turn around so she could smile at her. "What do you know?"

Weiss relented and turned around.

"About a month before the final battle of Beacon, Ruby and I were up late one night talking and the subject of mothers came up. My mother passed away when I was young too, so it seemed like a topic we had in common." Weiss started explaining.

"Great bonding moment," Yang grumbled back. Now trying to free her hand from Ruby's unrelenting grip.

"Quiet, you brute." Weiss responded lightly with a smile. "Ruby decided to trump me that night. It was sweet actually." Weiss' smile grew larger. "Ruby told me that, while she misses Summer terribly, her real mother wasn't the woman who gave birth to her, but the woman who raised her."

Yang stood there quietly in shock, trying to fight back the tears welling up in her eyes. She then leaned over to give her little sister a hug.

"Thank you." Yang was only able to get those two words out before she was overwhelmed by tears.

After a few minutes of quiet Yang stood back up while Ruby raised her head to make eye contact. The brunette's silver eyes were also glistening with tears.

"But how did you know to look for me?" Yang inquired softly.

"I saw you in the Emerald Forest." Ruby said instantly. "One day a few months ago we were walking along and I saw a white shape in the distance. At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but I undoubtedly saw you laying on a white blanket still wearing your combat outfit. You looked like you just had escaped from a burning house." Ruby took a second before continuing. "You made eye contact with me and then vanished through one of the portals similar to the one you said Raven used on the train."

"Speaking of Raven," Blake broke into the conversation before it could run off on a different tangent. "Why were you dressed like her?"

Yang moved her gaze to make eye contact with the faunus' amber eyes.

"That is actually a good question." Yang looked thoughtful after her response. "It's actually Amber's fault."

" _What?"_ Amber's anger flared up.

Ignoring her, Yang continued to explain. "When I first acquired Amber from Pyrrha, Amber thought it was through the normal means of how the maiden abilities transfer. She thought Pyrrha died and knew her last thoughts were of Raven."

"Why were her thoughts of Raven?" Blake pushed the issue.

"Uh, because Raven showed up and shielded me from the blast that knocked the rest of you out." The reply slid out of Yang's mouth in a quick and somewhat flustered manner. "Then Cinder hit Raven with another attack that knocked her mask off. So when I got Amber she instantly assumed that I was Raven. Between what Amber heard of Raven and my few memories that I had access to told me how Raven dressed and acted. I was able to use Superba in its collapsed sword form to open portals and picked her mask up. That inspired me to add the black and red clothes as well as that stylish plume of hair that Raven has. In fact my hereditary semblance only threw Amber off even more"

"Wait?" Weiss exclaimed curiously. "You have a hereditary semblance as well?"

"Yeah… Wait, you have one?" Yang replied.

"Explain now!" Weiss snapped eagerly, ignoring the question aimed back at her.

"Ok, princess. Just calm down a little bit." Yang got delight from the sour face that the heiress gave her in return. "Let's see, Schnee…"

" _Summoning"_ Amber offered. " _I had heard about it before but have never seen it in action."_

"Let me guess, You can summon creatures with your glyphs?" Yang asked, though she already knew the answer.

"Yes.' Weiss replied hesitantly, "How did you know?"

"I am going off what Amber has told me." Yang explained full heartedly. She loved it when she knew something that Weiss did not. "It's interesting having her in my head, she apparently views herself as more of a scholar than a fighter. It's a nice change of pace talking to smart person who is also nice for once." Yang winked at Weiss to let her know she was joking, kind of. "Anyways, summoning, like portals, is actually a maiden ability. When a maiden has a child, they have a chance that one of the maiden abilities will attach itself to their semblance. When that happens, the semblance is then passed onto their children alongside the maiden ability and a small magic footprint. So when you summon, you are not only using your hereditary glyph semblance, you are also using a small magic reserve first before tapping your aura. That is what confused Amber though, she felt my magic reserve and it only reinforced the idea that I was Raven.

"Most people will never be able to tell. Most just assume summoning is just part of your normal glyph semblance."

The heiress stared at her in an understandably confused manner.

"For another example of a hereditary semblance with a maiden ability. You all saw my father on the battlefield. Did you notice how he was able to augment his strength and conjure fire in coherent shapes in combat? I inherited that from him. The strength enhancement is part of my berserker semblance. The fire aspect, that's the attached maiden ability. While I haven't mastered it to the same degree as him, I can heat up the area around me whenever I feel like it. To produce flames like he did I need a massive surge of emotions. Which is, admittedly, much easier when my actual berserker semblance activates."

"And why can't I summon fire?" Ruby asked, "That would be really awesome!"

"No, that would be terrifying." Weiss interjected hastily.

"You have your own unique semblance, Rubes.' Yang responded gently. "Apparently the Xiao Long semblance didn't pass on to you. It makes you special" Yang winked at the girl. "I know you all probably have more questions, but I am still beat from my 'adventures'. We have two weeks left before we go back to Patch, let's hit the hay so we can do something fun tomorrow."

"Agreed." All of her teammates replied unanimously.

Before the girls could go their separate ways to get ready for bed, Yang reached out to gather them all in a hug again.

"Just remember, you three are the brightest lights in my life."

* * *

 **Wooo... So, any questions?**

 **Too bad. I want to thank all you fine people who stuck it out and read my story. It was my first story and a little rough.**

 **And, thank Zelindsay and XenonRaumzeit for spending lots of time helping me fill my missing plot points and fixing my many grammar and spelling errors.**

 **Since they don't explain hereditary semblances in the show I decided to come up with my own explanation. And I really wanted Taiyang and Yang to share a semblance with each other.**

 **I also agree with Weiss... a speeding Ruby fireball would be terrifying.**

 **Originally, Yang was supposed to inherit a portal ability that was from the Branwen line instead, but that was going to get me into a huge mess that I wasn't happy with. Plus, I am trying to keep this inline with Canon as much as possible and they showed us that Qrow's semblance is the ability to turn into a Crow. But the one thing I don't accept from Ruby Canon is Pyrrha and Penny dying. If Roosterteeth can't play with their toys properly, I will hold onto them until they learn to play nicely.**

 **Will there eventually be a sequal? Yes. It will be called Ashen Fist and it will take place in the two weeks immediately after the end of this story and will be a happier more adventure driven story. (Written better too.) However, that is going to be a few months until I get around to that.**

 **And, some of the questions that weren't answered here, will be answered in a sequel. :)**


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